


Treading Water

by tsukinofaerii



Series: Learning to Swim [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accidental Cockblocking, Aphrodisiacs, Knotting, Multi, Season 3 Didn't Happen, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:04:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Investigating whatever's in the water of Beacon Lake should have been an easy way to pass the summer. Should have been. But one dip in the lake is all it takes to set  off a reaction that lands Allison, Derek and Stiles neck-deep in hot water. And Scott? Scott has the world's worst timing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treading Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ordinaryink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinaryink/gifts).



> This is for Polyamory Big Bang. You can find the art [at ordinaryink's Tumblr](http://ordinaryink.tumblr.com/post/72370161925/treading-water-by-tsukinofaerii-art-by-me). Isn't it gorgeous? (smushes her)
> 
> This started with ordinaryink (coincidentally my artist for this) commenting that there isn't enough Allison/Derek/Stiles or M/F knotting and I went I CAN DO THAT. Wash/Rinse/Repeat and watch it sort of devolve from there. Major thanks to waterofthemoon for her beta work!
> 
> Potential triggers and squicks are for drowning, xenophilia (yes, Derek gets some action while he's all furry) and embarrassment.

Summer in Beacon Hills was _not_ what Stiles remembered. Central air conditioning had spoiled him.

The window hung wide open to the breeze with no less than three fans going, and it still wasn't enough. The part of Stiles that had spent most of his high school career living in terror knew that an open window was basically asking for a supernatural axe murderer to climb through and complicate things. Most of him just didn't care. It was muggy, and he was going to take advantage of the breeze even if it did end up killing him. 

College had been a nice change. He didn't have to think about things like murdering ghosts or wayward werewolves or whatever supernatural being they'd recently pissed off. It was all studying, partying and normal people. High stress, low-impact: exactly what Stiles needed in life. But still, it was good to be home for the summer, around familiar faces and old problems. It was a living reminder of exactly why he was double majoring in criminal justice and folklore.

It just would have been nice to be reminded without being melted into a puddle of easily-burned, future cancerous skin. 

Stiles stretched out over his bed, stripped down to his boxers. Allison and Scott took up the other half of the bed, also mostly naked. The saddest part was that Stiles was too overheated to look. There was _visible bra_. That that was being left unappreciated was one of the great tragedies of his life. Right behind the werewolf thing.

"We should... do something," Allison muttered lethargically. Her hair was piled fetchingly atop her head in what a younger, more naïve Stiles had thought was a complex and probably difficult hair style. At least, until college brought with it the epiphany that no, that was just how long girl-hair looked when they didn't give a damn but wanted it up. "Study. Books and... stuff. While it's daylight."

"I'm thinking about trading in my werewolf card and becoming a vampire." Scott groaned and shifted over on the bed, leaving a slightly damp spot behind. He was doing worse than either Stiles or Allison; werewolves were, apparently, cold weather creatures. Sweat pooled on his back, beaded every surface of skin. If it hadn't been fuck-hot degrees, Stiles might even have been interested. "Nocturnal and stuff."

"Don't let Derek hear you say that," Stiles shot back. He flopped an arm in Scott's direction, doing his best to make _noodley_ look _pointed_. It didn't exactly work. "He's still bitter about the Team Edward thing senior year."

"I still can't believe that a school with a pack of werewolves would side with the _vampire_ ," a familiar, grumpy voice said from the doorway. 

Stiles lifted his head enough to verify that yes, it was Derek, and yes, his white t-shirt _was_ practically see-through with sweat. He could have cried, if he hadn't already sweated most of the fluids out of his body earlier that afternoon. Using the floppy arm, he waved at Derek, then let it fall back to the bed where it smacked Scott in the middle of the back. 

Allison didn't even open her eyes. "Blame Erica. She and Lydia were the ones who thought _glittery vampire_ was appropriate for prom. I would have gone with Star Gazing."

"I think they just wanted to see if anyone would stop them." One of Scott's eyes cracked open. It was mostly still human, but there was an unnatural— _or supernatural,_ Stiles cracked himself up—glow of brighter yellow around the outer edge of the iris. "You could have, you know."

Derek cocked his head and rolled his eyes dramatically. If sweat hadn't started to collect in his stubble, Stiles might have found it more believable. "Yes, Scott, I have complete control over the formal events thrown by a high school I haven't attended in years. I should have remembered that." 

"You should have. I still have loose glitter all over," Allison said, in the tone of a goddess on high laying down a proclamation. "Now that that's settled, what are you here for?" 

She sat up, doing that thing where she only used her abs to move. All sorts of fascinating things happened as she did it. Her stomach muscles tightened, of course, but also her bra strap slipped down her shoulder, and a loose strand of hair fell down to cling to her sweaty neck. 

Even with the heat tamping down his libido, Stiles couldn't stop from giving her an appreciative once-over. Long ago, he and Scott had had the ex-girlfriend talk. The one where Scott said it was completely and utterly okay if Stiles dated Allison, he just didn't want any details and demanded full godfather rights when their unholy spawn clawed its way forth from the depths of Hell to wreak havoc upon an unsuspecting world.

Okay, what Scott had said was more along the lines of, _I trust you to take care of her, dude. This is a crazy world. If we're not careful, she'll end up dating a zombie or something, and that would suck._ And then he'd puked wolfsbane all over Stiles' passenger seat and had proceeded to almost die. That had been back during the Disaster of Sophomore Year Wherein There Had Been a Lot of Death Everywhere. They'd never spoken of it again, but the sentiment counted. Probably. It counted _enough_ , was what Stiles was saying. 

And he wasn't the only one checking out the buff-chic thing Allison had done. Derek's eyes drifted down her, losing their habitually Pissed At the World look for the second it took him to admit that no, not all is terrible and unjust in the world. Such as boobs. Unfortunately, he finished looking, and the constipated thing was back. "Get dressed. I'm supposed to take you down to the sheriff's office."

Stiles stretched slowly, reaching for the faint hint of breeze he could feel just over his chest. It was kind of gratifying that Derek looked at him, too. Nice. Like he had anything on Allison, but nice. Or maybe scrawny-pale was just one of Derek's kinks. "I'm pretty sure I got presentations about not going with strangers in kindergarten. Why should we go anywhere with you, Mr. Bad Touch Bear?" 

Derek's lips twitched. "Maybe because it's air conditioned?" 

The words hovered with icy promise between them. Scott was the first to move, rolling off the bed and scrambling into his shorts. Stiles and Allison followed close behind, with various amounts of grace—or lack thereof—between them.

The smile that wasn't on Derek's face became a full blown I'm Not Grinning, You're Just Hallucinating. "I thought you'd see it my way."

Driving to the department was not unlike being stuck in a mobile oven. There just wasn't time for the Jeep to cool down enough to make a difference. Stuffed with three not-just-metaphorically hot bodies, it was only worse. So Stiles cranked the A/C up and rolled the windows down for the whole five minute drive, and it was still only kind of cooling down when he parked in the spot out front that he privately thought of as his. 

As soon as the engine turned off, the three of them piled out of the Jeep and raced for the glass doors. Scott reached them first, yanking it open and falling inside. 

The air conditioning wasn't a lie. 

A wall of cold air hit Stiles like any one of the many walls he'd had occasion to run into. He groaned, spreading his arms out and letting the icy breath of modern technology wash over him. Stiles draped himself over the front desk shamelessly and let the cold air wash over his back, which was soaked with sweat from the car ride over. The deputies tooling around doing Important Police Business, some of whom had gotten his birth announcement, just ignored it, which was really the main bonus of being the sheriff's son. He might not get away with speeding, but making a fool of himself was a completely different matter. Once someone had fished a crayon out of your nose, there really weren't many new lows to sink to. 

Derek was already there leaning against a wall because Derek drove like a maniac and still owned a damned muscle car. "Come on," he said, jerking his head toward the back door, where the sheriff's office was pointedly open. "You can do that and listen, can't you?"

"Can't listen right now, busy basking," Stiles moaned, but he let Allison and Scott hook his arms and drag him down the hall. 

To the untrained eye, the sheriff's office seemed relatively straightforward. Computers, endless paperwork, undone filing and the occasional evidence of illicit fatty snack rustling. What the untrained eye would miss would be the custom rowan wood inlay on the doors, the special lock box of ammunition packed with everything from vials of holy water—water gun included—to rock salt, wolfsbane and stakes of yew. Getting his dad to accept and deal with the supernatural had been a long, rough road, but Stiles was proud of how far he'd come. 

Now if they could only apply that same flexibility and dedication to survival to the rest of his life. 

As soon as he was in his dad's office, Stiles resumed his sprawl, this time right over the top of several piles of hopefully not important paperwork. He heard the others shuffle in behind him, and then the click of a closing door. Turning his head, Stiles watched his friends settle in through half-lidded eyes. 

To his right, Allison, whose main experience with law enforcement had been official inquiries regarding arrows found in suspicious locations, sat up ramrod straight in her chair. By comparison, the stick up Derek's ass was positively tiny. An inch thick, at most. In fact, Derek looked nearly as relaxed as Scott, when he should be clenched up as badly as Allison. Maybe more, since Allison had never been dragged in on murder charges.

Interesting.

He pretended not to see the napkin with a print of the pizza joint down the street. It would be evidence that he'd later use to build his case toward getting his dad into a senior-friendly gym routine. Or at least an evening walk. _Maybe we should get a dog..._

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by the sheriff clearing his throat. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I had Derek gather you here today," his dad started, and Stiles couldn't quite keep in his groan.

"You've been waiting to say that, haven't you?" he demanded, rolling his head to give his dad a Look. And if the slight movement of his head happened to direct the breeze from the vent onto the back of his neck, no one needed to be the wiser. "Admit it."

"I admit nothing," his dad said, pointedly straightening a pile of previously perfect documents. " _As I was saying_ , I'm sure you're curious. The short of it is that Beacon Hills is a hot spot for what we will politely refer to as unusual wildlife activity." 

"Werewolves," Scott prompted, nodding.

"Baby hydra," was Allison's immediate addition. Which it would be, since the hydra issue had mostly been dealt with by her and Scott, and had irrevocably proved that they should never, ever have kids. Or pets. Or a plant.

Since it was Stiles' turn, he gave it a moment, then threw in, "Greenberg." 

Scott made a protesting noise that only barely covered his snort of laughter. "That's not fair. We still don't know what Greenberg is."

"We know he's probably evil."

"No, he's not," the sheriff said in those dad-like, This Is Final tones. "And get off my desk. If you stay like that much longer, someone's going to outline you in chalk."

Groaning in mock agony, Stiles pushed himself up, slowly straightening until he was nearly vertical. With a huge sigh, he dropped back into the visitors' chair, then immediately arched his back to keep from sticking to it. "You of all people should know that they don't actually—"

" _Stiles_." 

Allison covered her mouth politely to hide a giggle. It made her nose wrinkle cutely. Lurking in his corner, even Derek huffed a laugh, and Scott relaxed a little. 

It felt like a mission accomplished. 

The sheriff cleared his throat. "As I was _saying_ ," he began, giving Stiles a completely deserved stink-eye, "since Beacon Hills is such a hot spot, Derek's been doing some unofficial work for me as an informant. Nothing dangerous, but we've found that when creatures move in, they tend to move back out pretty quick when human authorities start nosing around."

Allison took a sharp breath between her teeth. She leaned forward intently, elbows resting on her knees. "That's _genius_. No wonder my dad said it's been unusually quiet."

"Occasionally our local alpha werewolf can have a bright idea." The sheriff threw a quick grin at Derek. "We haven't come across any major threats since we started, though. That's going to be the real test. Fairies tending beehives are one thing, but there's some nasty business out there."

"And you want us to help?" Stiles asked eagerly. It always did good to make sure; there'd been more than one talk about Staying Out of Adult Business before. Actually being adults hadn't really stopped it. If anything, it had just started the part where they had their whole lives in front of them and, incidentally, finals in three weeks, chop chop. 

Derek nodded solemnly, because he didn't have any other setting. "We just need more eyes on the ground. Summer's a big time for certain kinds of supernatural activity, and I don't have the free time I used to. The Sheriff is hoping to use the extra help to train some trustworthy people, but in the meantime, you'll have to do." 

It was Scott's turn to leap on something. "Whoa, wait, hold on. _You_ don't have free time?" His eyebrows lifted into perfectly surprised arches. "When did that happen?" 

"When I got a _job_." Derek's whole head moved with the force of his eye roll. It was kind of impressive, from where Stiles was sitting. Almost as much as his delicate eyebrow work, which semaphored _you're an idiot_ with admirable control. "And no, I'm not going to tell you where because it's none of your business." 

"It's kind of our business if we're picking up your alpha slack while you're asking if people want fries with their burger," Stiles felt the overwhelming need to point out, will to live be damned.

All he got for his efforts was that the eyebrows were turned on _him_ with all the power of a Hollywood-strength, brooding antihero smolder. Stiles swallowed and sat back in his chair, shifting so his boner had half a chance of being hidden. "Okay, maybe not." 

After a second, Derek looked away again, and Stiles relaxed a little. Scott gave Stiles a sympathetic elbow, but all Stiles wanted to do was demand to know how Scott had gotten through years of being stared at by Derek Hale and come away absolutely straight. It defied all expectation and logic. Or at least, it defied those eyebrows. 

Damn those eyebrows. Damn them to gay porn hell.

His dad rolled his eyes so hard that, for a second, Stiles worried for their health and safety. "Will you three do it?"

The other two were already nodding, probably eager to get a head start on their annual brush with death, but there was something important weighing on Stiles' mind. "Will we get air conditioning?" Never do anything for free, that was Stiles' motto. Or it was when his bedroom was classified somewhere between sauna and lava pit.

Immediately, Stiles' hopes were dashed. "I'm not having central air installed for the two weeks a year that it would be used." When they all drooped—even Derek's shoulders rounded a little, which was interesting—the sheriff sighed. "But we'll buy you a window unit, how's that?" 

"Deal!" Stiles crowed, throwing up his arms in victory. Cool air _and_ something to block the Stilinski Window Highway? _Score_.

A folder of files slapped down onto the desk. 

"Good," the sheriff grinned with the ease of a man who had a guaranteed method of keeping his kid busy. "Your first assignment is some unusual sightings down at the lake. No funny business, and I want you to stay out of danger." His eyes tracked from Stiles to Allison, over to Scott and then finally to Derek. "I know you kids think you're invincible, but you're not. The first sign of anything threatening, I want you to let me or Derek know _immediately_. If I find out you're trying to handle this on your own, I'll never give you another file, and I'll find a way to get you assigned to community service until it's time to ship you back to school. Are we clear?"

Stiles reached to snag the folder, but Scott and his werewolf reflexes beat him to it. "We understand, Mr. Stilinski," he promised, voice throbbing with sincerity. "We won't do anything dangerous."

* * *

The moon was coming down off of full, but there was still plenty of light bouncing off the surface of Beacon Lake. It was one of those long, winding things that seemed more like a river that had gotten knocked up. The trees all around were more like tree-shaped shadows, and there were rocks and bugs _everywhere_. They'd chosen a small clearing just at the top of the incline that led down to what could laughingly be called a beach. Beacon Lake couldn't decide if it wanted gravel or rock, and so it had both in sharp, uncomfortable amounts, along with a hearty serving of slippery moss and algae. But, Allison had to admit, at least it was clean. There'd been a ten year campaign to clean up the lake that had finally paid off after years of dumping.

Allison scratched at a bug bite on the webbing between her fingers; the damned thing had landed right where she couldn't ignore it. To make matters even more miserable, the night air was heavy with humidity, making her clothes and stray hairs cling to her skin where dirt hadn't beaten them to it. Summer was the _worst_.

And that was when they weren't looking for unknown _things_ in the dark. She wasn't the type of person to get spooked easily—living her high school years out in Beacon Hills had a way of toughening a person up—but somehow it didn't seem very smart, going down to a known monster-infested location with no backup and no idea what they were facing. Not that it would have been the first time, but Allison liked to think they learned from their mistakes. "Maybe we shouldn't do this without Derek."

"Derek's not going to be free until tomorrow afternoon," Scott explained, with all the easy conviction of someone who could grow claws and run away at a moment's notice. Not that he would, but Allison sometimes suspected there was a lot of comfort in having knives literally at your fingertips. 

"Anyway, we're not going swimming or anything. We'll be fine," Stiles added helpfully, effectively dooming them all by the rules of the horror movie. He pushed aside a tree branch to peer down the hill towards the water. The back of his shirt rode up, showing a sliver of pale skin that stood out in the dark like a flashlight beam. Allison watched it idly, counting freckles she could only half see. 

The three of them sat there, watching the time tick away on their phones. Every now and then, there was a shadow on the water that looked out of place, but it always vanished before they could even snap a picture. After the first hour of seeing the water ripple and nothing come of it, Allison grabbed a large rock to sit on. Her ass would go numb, but it was better than standing around for who knew how long. 

Scott and Stiles stayed up front, crouched down so they could stay on point. With nothing better to do, Allison let her eyes wander. It had been years since she and Scott had gone through their final break up, but not dating someone didn't mean they weren't hot. Scott's head was bent forward, baring the nape of his neck and making it look incredibly bitable. And even in the dark, she could see how his shirt clung to him, stretched tight by werewolf-granted muscles. 

Stiles wasn't bad either, for all that he seemed to like clothes that were two sizes two large and shaped like grocery sacks. The humidity had forced him to strip down to his undershirt. What would usually be too baggy to show anything was clinging and wet with sweat, bunched around his waist like he'd knotted it in the front. His jeans rode low on his hips, flashing the top of his boxers. They were too loose to really show off his ass, but they'd gone swimming together before and she knew what it would look like. Trunks didn't really hide much. 

As soon as she felt the heat climbing her cheeks, Allison tried to derail that thought. Experience said that Scott not only _could_ smell arousal, but he would at the worst given moment. Usually it wasn't a problem, but she could feel it itching under her skin. It made her want to pace, to get up and move, or maybe to just pin Stiles to a tree.

It could have been worse, though. Derek could have been there, and then she really would have been in trouble. She was only human.

Human in a pack of werewolves. Universally hot werewolves who took off their shirts at a moment's notice. Damn it.

 _Get ahold of yourself,_ she told herself sternly. _It's been a while, but that's no excuse._ Licking her lips, Allison rubbed her hands down her thighs and forced herself to look away. What she saw made her blink. "Guys?"

In BFF-unison, the two boys turned to look at her, expressions set in matching confusion. "What?" 

Allison raised a finger to point upward. "That's not normal."

The moon had risen high enough that it was shining directly through a gap in the trees, making the surrounding area more than bright enough to make out the buds on the trees. Trees that already had leaves and should have been long past blooming for spring. Trees that she could have sworn weren't budding when they'd arrived. 

Once she'd started looking, the same weirdness was everywhere. There were fresh blooms on plants Allison knew for a fact wouldn't bud until much later in the season. Berry vines that still had dried fruit from their last cycle had little white flowers peppered around them. And there were definitely some suspicious chirps coming from the trees when the birds should have been asleep with the sun. 

Scott was looking at her like she'd suggested naked skydiving, but Stiles' eyes had gone wide with realization. "They're all out of season, aren't they?" He dropped the hem of his shirt, which apparently he'd been holding up for the sake of the breeze, and stepped into the shadow of one of the trees. There was a suggestion of fumbling, and then the flashlight app on his phone kicked in. Overhead came a flutter of wings and a sudden silence. "Yup. The birds were doing it." 

"But it's spring," Scott said, craning his neck to see what Stiles was seeing. His hair was sticking up, spiky with sweat. "Everything's having sex. That's the whole point of spring."

"It's practically summer, though." Since Scott had started it, Allison slipped in between them to look, too. The warm press of their bodies was a momentary distraction until she made herself focus. The target of Stiles' light was a tree limb high overhead, where a nest was balanced carefully in the elbow of the wood. " _Oh_! There's chicks in the nest."

When Scott only kept looking on in confusion, Allison stepped aside and dragged him over. Then she forced his chin up at the right angle to see the little beak poking out. "See? There. The parents wouldn't usually breed more when they already have mouths to feed."

"And I bet if we went further into the woods, the deer would be up to it, too." Stiles flipped off his phone, leaving Allison blinking in a darkness that was deeper than it had been before. There were two spots of glowing gold that were probably Scott's eyes, and what the moonlight touched was a silvery sort of nothing. Other than that, everything was dark. "Something's set them all off."

The yellow spots blinked in and out for a second, then Scott said, "Something in the water?" 

Both humans groaned and reached for him. In the dark, with their night vision ruined, there was really no chance of them catching him, but they still tried. Allison's hand smacked into a firm, damp stretch of chest that yelped like Stiles. Cotton bunched under her fingers as Allison gripped it, hooking her fingers in the collar of Stiles' shirt. It was high enough up that she felt him swallow and that was... interesting.

"I'm serious!" Twigs snapped as Scott scampered away. His eyes dropped down, and one of them vanished behind a deeper shadow—taking cover behind a tree. "What if it's an effect of whatever's in the lake?"

"You think it's a _sex monster_?" Stiles' voice hit interesting pitches of denial. "Come on, don't you think that if something like that were going to happen here, it would have already?" 

Allison's hand tightened on Stiles' collar. His skin was burning against the backs of her fingers. Every time he spoke, the vibrations of his vocal cords went straight through her fingers and cut down to her stomach. Sure, it had been a long time since she'd gotten laid, but there was bad timing, and then there was _this_. There was nothing going on that should have set her off this much. 

"Scott has a point," she said, clearing her throat a little. "There's precedent. A lot of things use sex to lure in their prey."

Her vision was starting to come back enough that she could make out Stiles nodding, see her hand wrapped tight in his shirt and _oh_ , that was bad. Hurriedly, she let go, shaking out her fingers and rubbing them against her hip. Sweat had made them slightly sticky damp, but Stiles wasn't the only one who was wet.

_Nope, not going there._

"Or maybe it's some sort of side effect." Scott rose up from his hiding place, eyes losing their glow. "It could be anything. We thought griffins weren't likely either, and look how that turned out."

"Hey, I totally called that one," Stiles protested, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Of course you did," Scott said soothingly as he hooked an arm through Stiles'. Allison took the other one, and together, they started dragging Stiles back to their cars. 

"Let's just go home," she suggested, patting Stiles' bicep. The deer trail was clear enough that they could walk it even with their eyes still weird from the flashlight. Which was lucky, because if there was actual sex in the water, Allison wasn't sticking around to see if she could actually convince herself to make a move on Stiles in front of Scott. "We're not going to find anything else, and I need some sleep."

And some quality time with her vibrator, but that didn't need to be mentioned.

* * *

When Derek walked into the Stilinskis' house at lunch time the next day, Stiles greeted him with a perky, "So, there's a lot of tentacle porn on the internet. Which I knew, but hadn't really grasped until I spent last night looking up water-based sex monsters." 

Derek paused with his hand still on the doorknob. The bright, sunny morning outside called to him with a promise of no embarrassment, no questions and almost definitely no awkward silences. Unfortunately, what it didn't have was people who could help with the lake problem while he worked long shifts. So he finished stepping inside and closed the door and tried not to breathe in deeply. "I don't want to know about your masturbation habits."

His three troublemakers-slash-helpers were sprawled on the couch with sheaves of paper stacked in three piles on the coffee table in front of them. One of the piles was the sheriff's reports, and the two others looked like printouts from the internet and bestiary. All three were scribbled with brightly colored ink where they'd been taking notes. Or possibly where they'd been writing a thesis—there was a _lot_ of notes. 

"No, no, it's topical, I swear." Stiles had the purple pen perched behind his ear; it had already left a streak across his temple. "We did some recon last night, and double-checked this morning. That place is an orgy in progress." 

Derek took the remaining spot in a recliner and accepted the pen that Allison handed him. It was red, and some jackass—Stiles—had sharpied ALPHA PEEN onto the side. He rolled his eyes at it, because he knew that was what Stiles was looking for. "It's _spring_. Everything's having sex."

Especially them. There wasn't one of them that didn't reek like they'd spent the night jerking off. None of the scents were mixed, so it must have been unassisted, but it was still thick in the air. As long as he kept his breath shallow, he was okay, but Derek still made a point of keeping his knees apart and leaning forward to disguise any possible reactions. 

"That's what I said!" Scott actually bounced on the middle couch cushion. He had the green pen clipped to the collar of his t-shirt and, unlike Stiles, had remembered what the cap was for before it had marked him. "But we went back to get some pictures, and there's autumn flowers mixed with spring flowers."

Allison glanced up from the stack of papers she was scribbling on in blue. Her neck was bright pink from being freshly scrubbed, and she smelled like soapy perfume mixed with sex. A lot of perfume and sex. He had to give her points for effort, though. "And the animals aren't behaving normally." She tapped the end of her pen against her paper. "They're definitely breeding outside their normal season. We caught rabbits, squirrels and birds all going at it."

"It's spring break for wildlife!" Stiles was way, way too excited about the prospect of this being a sex thing. Derek narrowed his eyes at him, but all it got him was a shit-eating grin. The power of terror had stopped working once Stiles had realized that Derek wasn't actually going to rip out his guts and feed them to him. Respect for Authority was Stiles' middle name. His first name was almost definitely No.

"Okay," Derek finally allowed, reaching over to pick up the sheriff's records. They looked like the back half of a rainbow. He hoped the sheriff hadn't expected to get them back. "Let's say you're right. How does that tie in to what we _know_ has happened to the human victims?"

Silence. In his peripheral vision, Derek saw all three of them look at each other uncomfortably. 

"Exactly." Pointedly, he pulled out the different packets of information and laid them out next to each other on the table. He'd already read them all, and knew for a fact that none of them said much of anything about sex. One of the reports was from an older couple who'd been going on a walk, but that was as close as it got. "This is our evidence. Let's stick with it." 

When he looked up, all three faces were drooping with disappointment.

Closing his eyes, Derek took a deep, calming breath and counted to ten. Of all the times for Boyd and Erica to have stayed away for the summer... "If something comes up that the sex angle starts looking significant, we can always change tacks. But for now, let's stick with facts instead of speculation." 

They still didn't look happy, but Scott's hangdog eyes were a little less manipulative, and that would have to do. Derek had fallen for those eyes too many times to be comfortable when they were turned on him. 

Allison reached for the first pile of papers. "Okay, Millie Tells. Bird watcher, out looking for ducks and... Swans and stuff."

"She was the first," Stiles piped in. Like the obnoxious little shit he could be, he threw himself to the side, practically draping over Allison in order to look at the printouts. His cheek was cradled in the crook of her neck and shoulder, completely naturally. "Nothing seemed weird about her story, so the sheriff didn't really look into it. Sprained her ankle, went down to the lake to cool it off in the water, slipped and went under, had to call a deputy to get her to a hospital for her ankle. This was a month ago." 

Derek nodded and leaned back, tilting his head to stare at the ceiling. His own mental notes aligned themselves in his head. Annoyingly, they were written in red ink. "Anderson Freland was a week later, wasn't he?" he asked, using the sound of his own voice to prompt his memory.

It was Scott's turn to reach for the papers. Freland was the thickest pile. "Yeah. Middle-aged dude sobering up before going home to his wife. Said someone pushed him into the lake." 

Reaching over, Stiles plucked the files from Scott's willing hand. "My dad's notes say he has a lot of priors for alcohol and narcotic related incidents," he said, flipping to the fourth page. "Urine and blood work showed that he'd been on something the night he was shoved, but dad blacked out what it was. That's why the second incident flew under the radar."

"Guy's high as a kite, ends up in the water. The only surprise is that he managed to get back out again." A small furrow appeared between Allison's brows. "I noted it... somewhere, but all of these seem like they could just be accidents." She made a point of shuffling through the pile, but any personal notes she'd made were long since vanished into the mess of paper. 

But Scott was shaking his head. "Four incidents and five people," he said. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. "And that lake is basically abandoned most of the year. People don't go swimming in it, and it's no good for fishing or boating. Why now?"

"It _could_ be a coincidence." Stiles didn't sound sure, though. He kept twisting his hands together, cracking his knuckles like they might make music. "Frank and Jenny were holding hands and not looking at their feet. They could have slipped in. And Harriette is old. She could have lost her footing easily."

"But?" Derek glanced down the bridge of his nose at Stiles.

The hand-wringing paused, then Stiles blurted out, "But _sex water_!"

"They all got out." To Derek, that was the significant part. Five people in four weeks fell into a lake on accident, at least three of them in conditions that would have made escape difficult, and they'd all not only managed it, but had been shaken up enough to call for assistance. Even the guy who'd been high and had a lot of reasons to avoid cops.

It only added up to something odd if you didn't know humans well, but Derek did. He'd grown up around them after all, and humans were unpredictable, yes, but there was something _off_ about it."

"Okay." Bracing herself with one hand on Stiles' shoulder and the other on the arm of the couch, Allison lifted herself up. There was a little fumbling when the old, soft cushions of the sofa refused to let her go, but Stiles pressed an arm to the small of her back, and she finally finished tilting forward enough to stand. "Then the only thing to do is to check out the lake itself, right? Not just around it." She turned around to help Stiles up, linking their arms and leaning back so her weight forced the couch to give way. It bent her in two, placing her ass right in Derek's view. 

Quickly, he turned his eyes back up to the ceiling. "I thought you'd already been there?" 

"Nope." There was a sound of springs creaking, and then Scott bounced free. He actually came down heavily on the floor, rattling their coffee cups on the table. "We looked around the woods near the lake. We weren't dumb enough to go near the water."

 _Small favors,_ Derek thought grimly. still staring at the ceiling. When he looked back down, the three of them were staring at him expectantly. Not unlike the way Laura used to stare at him when he came home with a bag from the one bakery she liked. There was a little longing, a little anticipation and a lot of threatened violence if he didn't just give in. It had been a long time since he had been in that bakery. Even after four years, it hurt to think of her. There was a tightness in his chest, a spot that never really quite recovered from the loss.

So Derek didn't think of it. He shook his head and rose from his chair with far fewer dramatics. As soon as he did, they all brightened. "Let's go investigate, then. Before this place becomes an oven."

* * *

The water looked cool and inviting, especially as the sun started to boil the mercury. Monster or no, Stiles was tempted to just leap in. It was a sure road to suicide by water monster ( _sex_ water monster, he was sure of it, no matter what Derek said about things like _evidence_ and _focusing on the problem at hand_ ). Knowing that didn't actually make it less inviting. Which, of course, was when the usual suspect one-upped him for bad ideas.

"I think we should split up." 

Stiles took a moment to stare at Derek, hard and judging. "Dude, have you learned _nothing_ from horror movies?" The lake in the mid-afternoon light was serenely beautiful, all twinkling blue water against the surprisingly not-evil looking backdrop of the preserve. It was, in short, the ideal setting for a slender brunette cutie to be brutally hacked to death in the first five minutes. 

And then Allison would probably sprain her ankle trying to rescue his corpse or something, and it would just generally be an awful way to die. 

"I think Derek's right," Scott put in, nudging a rock with the toe of his sneaker. His swim trunks had pandas on them. It was kind of adorable, in that way that only Scott could pull off. "We should be fine. You read the file."

"People have been pushed _in_ ," Allison argued, crossing her arms under her breast stubbornly. Unlike them, she'd opted for a flower-print sundress rather than her swimsuit and a shirt, and Stiles had to admit that it looked like she was getting the better of the breeze. "No fatalities just means no fatalities _yet_. We don't know what this thing is." 

"Buddy system?" Stiles offered as a compromise. As far as he could remember, no one ever got murdered using the buddy system. Or if they did, it didn't really take much at the box office. "We can hold hands as we walk. It'll be like kindergarten, but with less glitter." 

Derek muttered something under his breath, but nodded briskly. "Fine. Scott, you're with me." Without another word, Derek turned and stomped off: _stomp stomp stomp_. Of all of them, he was the only one who hadn't changed to lake-appropriate gear, preferring to stick to a too-small shirt and jeans that were probably melted into his skin by the way they fit. Seriously, if Stiles had been creepy enough, he could have made the cut/uncut call. (Not to say that he hadn't tried, but Derek didn't really hold still long enough for any staring to get done. Which was a damned shame, because his ass was a gift from god. The front could have only been better.)

Shrugging helplessly, Scott waved at them before following Derek at a trot.

Neither Stiles nor Allison moved for a second. Stiles was busy taking his fill of what was happening between those jeans and Derek's ass, but it took him a second to think to look at Allison. When he did, he grinned. She had her head cocked to the side, a contemplative expression on her face. 

"Nice view, isn't it?" Stiles asked cheerfully, shoving his hands in his pockets. In the distance, Derek's head started to swivel, then stopped. _Someone can hear us,_ Stiles thought gleefully. The sudden power of it made him continue on when normally he would have stopped. "Very... firm. Shame about the personality. I'd like to say it's an alpha thing, but that excuse ran dry years ago."

She jumped, flushing. The blush spread exactly over her cheeks, the way it only really did in cartoons about princesses who sang to little forest creatures. "How do you know I wasn't looking at Scott?" It came out a little defensively, which she must have realized because she just turned even redder. 

"Scott doesn't have an ass in those shorts." Which Stiles could only be thankful for. Not that there was anything wrong with Scott. He was, objectively, hot as hell, but Stiles felt like panda swim trunks were a line he didn't want to cross. "Don't worry about it. Even Boyd admits Derek's hot, and he's straight as they come." 

Allison shrugged and shoved her hands into her pockets. (Which made Stiles do a double-take. Dresses could have _pockets_? Acquiring a couple of them was starting to see more and more like an amazing idea.) She didn't, however, look away. "It's just complicated. But I can look, right?" 

"Isn't everything complicated?" The view, sadly, vanished behind an outcrop of rock. Sighing, Stiles swiveled on his heel and extended an elbow. "Come on, we should probably get moving so those two don't think we poor humans are slacking off."

The color on her cheeks faded a little, and took one hand out to wrap it around his arm. "They will anyway," she said. "Werewolves. I bet Derek took Scott because he thinks they'll take care of everything while we're safe wandering around the woods." 

"Then maybe we can beat them to the punch." It was a little too hot to walk together comfortably, but Stiles put up with it anyway. Every time Allison took a step, her skirt brushed his knee, and there was something soft in the way her hip bumped his that he liked. It was worth a little extra sweat. "One the sightings was a couple by the shore, right? Everyone else was alone. So let's play pretend." 

She hummed, nodding. "Romantic walk around the lake, and see what we see. Makes sense, I guess."

Their path took them from the edge of the tree line down a rocky embankment to where the actual Beacon Lake was. Officially, it was closed off to visitors, but that never stopped anyone. The place was only a short walk away from one of the more popular make out points. If Stiles remembered his locker room gossip, it wasn't really weird for someone to take their date on a stroll before going back to the car for some hot and heavy. 

What _was_ weird was walking with Scott's ex. Good weird or bad weird, Stiles wasn't sure. He was leaning toward good, but that could have just been because he'd never really had a chance to walk with anyone around the lake. Dating had happened in high school, yeah, but the combined efforts of his father, the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department and the many various paranormal predators that stalked his high school career had made parking in a well-known yet fairly remote spot to combine the best in public indecency, potential humiliation and complete distraction seemed like a particularly bad idea, even to Stiles. 

Still, Allison's hand was warm on his forearm, and if it was damp he couldn't tell through his own layer of sweat. It was enough to make his feet fumble over the uneven ground. 

Her hand tightened in his arm just in time to yank him back upright. "Don't fall," she laughed. It made her eyes sparkle warm brown in the sun. "That would _definitely_ put us on the losing team if we had to take you to the hospital and it wasn't even because of the lake monster." 

"I'll have you know, I'm graceful as a gazelle, thank you." Still, Stiles found himself standing up straight and taking a couple exaggeratedly careful steps before he noticed and went back to his usual lazy stroll. "But is that what we're calling it? A lake monster? What if it's ghosts or something? Isn't that kind of an insult?" There was a little crag up ahead where the forest dropped down to form the beach. He dropped Allison's arm and swung himself down, then reached up to offer a hand. 

Instead of taking it, Allison put her hands on his shoulders and leaned forward. Instinctively, Stiles grabbed her up by the waist before she fell into him, swinging her down to the crusty mix of gravel and sand that made up the beach. He misjudged the timing and her weight, though, and ended up slamming his forehead into her chin. Then gravity, his nemesis ever since he'd discovered stairs, took a pot-shot at bringing them both down. He had to do a complicated dance step that involved swinging Allison around and throwing himself forward to keep from landing them both on the gravel. 

By the time they were stable, Allison had her arms around his neck and her face buried in his shoulder, laughing so hard it felt like crying. The water soaked through his sneakers, cooling his feet and making his socks soggy. Next to the weight of Allison against him, the way her shoulders shifted and the sound she made trying to get in air between giggles, it didn't seem important. Somewhere in the distance, someone was playing some sort of choral music, and it should have been stereotypical and ridiculous, but Stiles still caught himself swaying slightly in time to the music. 

"Like a gazelle, huh?" Allison snickered, pulling away to give him a lifted eyebrow. Her whole face was flushed red, and there were tears in the corner of her eyes.

A beat too late, Stiles said, "I didn't say a sober gazelle, did I?" He caught himself leaning forward, the music tugging at him, like it was pulling him into her. 

Slowly, Allison's smile dropped away. "Stiles?" Her voice sounded a little breathless, uncertain. 

He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to step in close and feel her body against his again, to taste her chapstick and pull her hair out of that ridiculous bun—

Straightening up, Stiles took a step back and made himself breathe. His entire face felt like it was trying to burn off and was probably an attractive cherry red. "We should keep walking."

Allison's shoulders went back, like she'd been leaning in, too. But that was impossible. "Yeah," she said, forcing a smile. "We shou—" The word cut off with a scream and then a splash as she went down, vanishing into the water in a blink. 

Stiles didn't have time to even yell her name before a cold hand wrapped around his ankle and tugged. He went under, getting a mouthful of green-tasting lake water. The hand yanked him down until the surface was a muddy glint above. He kicked out, thrashing, but never connected to anything, never felt any impact. It was just down, and down and _down_. 

Just as suddenly, the grip on his leg vanished, leaving him floating at somewhere in limbo. Lungs burning, Stiles righted himself and looked for the surface. He could feel his heart pounding up in his throat, a burn in his eyes from trying to make sense of the shifting light underneath. _I'm going to drown_. 

Without warning, something grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled. Stiles went with it, kicking to follow the tug gratefully. The light grew stronger, the water brighter, and then they were there. 

He broke the surface barely a foot away from Derek and Allison, coughing up the little mouthfuls of water he'd taken in. 

"What the hell was that?" Derek demanded, eyes flashing red. Water plastered his hair against his skull, streamed down his forehead and completely unreasonable cheekbones like they needed the help. "I saw you go in. Did you two just decide to go _diving_ in a lake with who knows what?" 

"We didn't—" Allison said, gulping down air. "Something pulled me in. There was—I think I saw a face. A woman." 

"Back to shore," Stiles said, looking around at where they were. The thing that had pulled them under had dragged them a good fifty feet from the beach. It hadn't felt like they were moving that fast. No arguing with results, though. "Let's do the talking when we're not in the living room of something that just tried to kill us." 

Derek shot them a glare, but started breast-stroking for shore. Because of course he could swim. Of _course_. Stiles' own method of swimming was mostly to kick his feet and aim for the right direction, which worked well enough, even if it wouldn't win any races. Allison, of the creepy family of hunters-slash-overly-enthusiastic-survivalists, executed a perfect breaststroke, realized he wasn't keeping up, and then actually _waited_. 

Not for the first time, Stiles wondered how Scott had managed to get over her.

They dragged themselves out of the water nowhere near where they'd gone on. On principle, Stiles mimed kissing the dirt before attempting to stand. 

Weirdly, Stiles felt calm. Like he hadn't just gotten through yet another brush with death. His heartbeat was up, his throat itched from swallowing water, and maybe he was a bit lightheaded and warm, but there was none of the sick fear Stiles had almost started to get used to spicing up his life. It didn't feel like shock, either; Stiles had plenty of experience with that. 

He wasn't really sure what it was.

Beside him, Allison was twisting her skirt to wring out the worst of the water. She looked fetching, in a nearly drowned sort of way. With the aid of a clip and a miracle, her hair was still mostly up, but her sundress had gone see-through everywhere there weren't (in)conveniently placed flowers. 

So had Derek's t-shirt.

Derek's t-shirt didn't have any flowers.

Stiles had never in his life had a boner with worse timing and, what was worse, he couldn't even decide what sort of boner it was. 

"What happened out there?" Derek asked. His eyes were still alpha red, and the tips of his ears were kind of pointed, flushed bright pink. His shirt wasn't just see-through; it _clung_ , showing off every line and curve of muscle, the dark shadows of his nipples. 

The overall effect was worse than his usual shirtless state, and Stiles couldn't. Stop. Staring. When he tried to find somewhere else to look, his eyes just landed on Allison, who had either lost her bra in the lake or had never had one in the first place. Life just wasn't fair.

Allison seemed to have the same problem. Her eyes slid between Stiles and Derek, and she took a deep breath through her nose, holding it for a second before letting it out in a long stream. "We—we were... I..." A pink flash of her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. 

Derek's expression softened, red eyes vanishing back into gray-green. He stepped in to grab Allison's wrist. "Are you okay? Did you get injured?" 

Concerned was a sexy look on Derek. Phenomenally good, even if it was kind of an angry-worried look, because he couldn't do anything like have feelings without being annoyed about it. Stiles might have whimpered a little.

She shook her head, eyes huge and dark, cheeks flushed. "I think... there's something in the water. Like we saw last night."

Immediately, Derek's eyebrows drew into a scowl. His nostrils flared, scenting the wind, and really, there was no way that should have been hot. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I want to kiss you." Allison spoke clearly, each word articulated like she was having to focus on it. Turning her head, she locked eyes with Stiles and then _licked her lips again_ , Jesus Werewolf Christ on a saltine cracker. "Both of you. A lot."

Kissing. Kissing sounded _amazing_ , once it was in Stiles' head. Like the best idea ever. Which was probably exactly what Allison meant, damn it. 

Honesty over humiliation was probably the best policy, no matter how much it sucked. "Me, too," Stiles admitted, shoving his hands into his sodden pockets when Derek's eyes landed on him. "I mean—I usually—you're both incredibly hot, but I kind of think terror should still be in the front seat right now, and it's really not."

"I'm putting you two in the car." Derek grabbed Allison's elbow, then the back of Stiles' neck, fingers flexing to keep him in control of Stiles' trajectory, and pushed him toward where their cars were parked. "Scott and I can finish up on our own. 

For once, it was a good plan that came out of Derek's mouth. It might have worked if Stiles' knees didn't completely give out the second Derek grabbed him. He felt like a cat in heat; he just wanted to rub up against something, anything, and the spot on the back of his neck just seemed to make it go from an urge to a need. He staggered forward, grabbing Derek's t-shirt on the way down. It slid right through his fingers like it had been oiled, but fortunately, Allison grabbed him before he could finish falling. Stiles planted face-first into her chest, knees mostly bent, balanced precariously between a pair of soft breasts and the cold, hard ground.

Slowly, Stiles looked up.

He should move. He knew that. Moving was the only rational option, the only choice that would leave him with any dignity at all. But Allison was soft in all the right places, Derek was still holding him like a damned puppy, and Stiles' impulse control had never been good. 

Apparently, neither was Allison's. 

Before Derek could finish saying "don't", she'd dragged Stiles up into a kiss. Stiles made one, brief protesting noise before he got his knees under him and was able to feel a little less like the damsel. Her body pressed against his, one thigh sliding between his legs as she forced him to step back, back, back, until he bumped up against a large rock and there was nowhere else to go. The hand on his neck vanished, and Stiles had a flash of a second to miss it before Allison brought her tongue into things. 

Stiles slid his hands down the curve of her hips to her thighs, where the sundress was riding up. The hem was just _right there_ , and he didn't even need to think about it before his palms were against skin. Allison hummed against his lips, rocking her thigh and sending sparks flaring up behind his eyes. He groaned, hands moving up higher to her ass, the lacy touch of panties, and—

Between one touch and the next, Allison was gone. Derek snarled, holding her by the back of the neck the same way he had with Stiles earlier. He'd pulled her off and was holding her a good three feet away. That was just _not on_.

He met Allison's eyes, then pointedly glanced at Derek, then back. 

She grinned. 

A second later, Allison ducked down and twisted. Since Derek hadn't dug in his claws, the move effectively pulled her free of his grip. Before he could recover, Stiles stepped in, grabbing Derek's massive bicep—really, really, massive, _damn_ —and swung him around. By the time Derek realized what was happening, they had his back against the wall and were going in for the gold. Derek went stiff, eyes going huge and red when Allison nibbled at his jaw and Stiles' hands slid under his shirt. But when they kissed him, he took a sharp breath and then just _melted_. His lips parted, tongue slipping out, and all Stiles could do was go along with whatever seemed to be working.

Kissing with three people was weird, in a good way. Stiles was never really sure whose lips he was touching at any given time. Derek's stubble seemed to be everywhere, scraping up against everything. Completely to the contrary of all of Stiles' frequent fantasies, Derek's abs weren't like marble. They were hard, yeah, but soft and warm and completely, utterly perfect. There was a trail of hair thick enough to comb his fingers through. And he did, following it down until Allison's hands got in the way. They fumbled for a second, working against each other. But Stiles got to the button first, and then there was the sound of a zipper that was probably Allison thinking two steps ahead.

He didn't think he'd ever been so hard in his _whole freaking life_ , and Stiles' teenage years had basically been a smorgasbord of ridiculously hot people who also had an aversion to clothing. Rolling his hips against Derek's thigh helped ease the pressure, but not enough. Allison made a noise, and she had a whole thigh to herself that she didn't seem to mind riding like a pony. Stiles rocked again, pushing his hand down into Derek's jeans, and—

"Guys?" Scott's voice echoed over the water, but there was no denying that it was close. "Are you guys okay?"

They froze, staring at each other. Scott's footsteps sounded on the gravel, probably just around the bend.

Stiles sprang away, reaching down to adjust his dick, which hadn't actually gotten the "we're done here" message and was still missing the heat of two bodies against it. Allison pulled up her dress and straightened it out. Derek's dick was peeking out the top off his underwear—he was still hard too, Stiles could see it, and _damn it_ they'd been _this close_...

Scott came into view just a minute later. His face was twisted in worry. "Are you guys okay?" he asked, trotting over. "Derek said he heard a splash, and..." Something seemed to ping Scott's awareness, because he trailed off, looking between the three of them. Guilty horror twisted up Stiles' throat, but Scott just frowned and said, "What happened?"

"We had a close encounter of the watery kind." Stiles threw his arm over Scott's shoulders and angled him toward the car so he would hopefully miss Derek adjusting his boner. 

"Are you okay?" Scott twisted to look back at Allison, then stumbled when Stiles yanked him back forward. 

"Just a little wet," she said glibly. "Come on, I want to change into something that's not soaked."

* * *

Scott, Derek knew, could be incredibly, horrifyingly aware sometimes. And then there were other times that it took a literal brick to the head before he picked up on the obvious. There was no telling which this one was, and Derek felt a little like an asshole for hoping it would be the brick to the head this time. 

None of them had wanted to go back to an air conditioner-less house (the sheriff still hadn't made good on his promise), so they'd found an open park and were taking advantage of the last bit of daylight. 

Stiles and Allison seemed to have no problems working together even though they'd been about three seconds from having sex. Him, on the other hand, they were treating with kid gloves. Derek wasn't really sure if he was grateful for that or not. It bought him time to figure out what to do about it. If there was anything to do. 

It had just been their own overactive imaginations working against them. They'd convinced themselves there was something in the water, and when it happened, they'd let themselves take advantage of it. There didn't have to be more to it than that. As long as none of them took it too seriously, it would turn into just another embarrassing story Stiles would tell when he was drunk. There were plenty of them, and no one was sure which ones actually happened anyway. Nothing lost.

And if Derek had felt anything before that dive into the lake, well. That was nothing.

"So you saw a woman's face," Scott was saying, leaning over the picnic table they'd spread their web on. The paper was from an old roll of newsprint Stiles had pulled from the attic, and took up most of the picnic table. The fading sunlight turned the paper to a muddy gold color that shined just in a way that made the pencil hard to see. Crumbled up to the side was the sketch they'd tried to make of what Allison thought she'd seen. None of them were artists; it could have been any of a dozen characters from the funny pages. "With these finny things around her neck?" 

"Yeah." On the other side of the table, Allison frowned down at their work. It was worth frowning at. "Beacon Lake" took up the center of the web, with only a few lines leading out of it. The other witnesses that they knew of, Allison's description and an unintelligible scribble courtesy of Stiles. "That could be anything, couldn't it?" 

At the far, far end of the table, Stiles was clicking through the translated bestiary at a speed that made the keystrokes blur into one long sound. He hadn't looked up once since starting the laptop up. Glasses perched on the end of his nose, a recent development since he'd started college. "Well, water is a female element, according to just about every cheesy horoscope website ever. Most things that look human-ish in the water tend to look like women at least part of the time."

Derek grunted and stared down at the incredibly thin web. "Helpful. So we've only narrowed it down to, what? Five hundred or so?"

"A couple dozen, once we eliminate anything that's salt water." He saw a hint of Stiles eyes peeking over the top of the laptop. Then they were gone, hiding again as he went back to his data. "Rusalka, kappa, undine, kelpie—"

"Aren't those horses, though?" Scott cut in, leaning over to peer around the corner at the screen. Whatever he saw made his eyes go huge and a spike of warm-copper embarrassment flood his scent.

"Horses that turn into naked ladies, just like every freaking thing else," Stiles said cheerfully, grinning as he tapped in a sequence and then angled the screen so Scott could see better. "Ancient mythology is full of kinky shit."

"Okay, now I _have_ to know." Allison leaned over on Stiles' other side. Her eyebrows went up. After a second, her head tipped to the side, something low curling through her scent. The same smell, in fact, that Derek had noticed on the beach—arousal. "Bendy, isn't she?"

Derek wondered who or what he had pissed off, that he'd been given a life sentence of drowning in teenage hormones. Then he pointedly cleared his throat, making all three of them jump guiltily. "We can probably take anything off the list that historically kills people for food. There would have been a death by now." 

" _That_ actually does shrink it down." Stiles' face drew in to form a thoughtful frown. "It's still a lot to sift through, and these files aren't exactly a master's thesis of helpful detail. There's no bullshit cross reference."

"We should pick up tomorrow." Scott glanced guiltily at his watch. "I promised Mom I would eat dinner with her while I'm home. She says it's empty nest syndrome." 

"You mean, Has To Do The Dishes On Her Own Syndrome," Stiles snorted, but he closed the lid on the laptop. "My room should be bearable by now. I can do some more at home, narrow our parameters down to something useful." 

"I'll help." Allison shot a smile at Stiles that was a little too bright. "Two heads are better than one, right?"

Derek didn't miss the way Stiles' heartbeat spiked or the way he swallowed suddenly. His eyes darted to Scott, then back to Allison. "Sure. Study buddies it is. It'll be nice to have an extra set of hands."

Knots twisted trough Derek's chest. The tips of his claws dug into the picnic table before he caught himself and pulled them back in. Giving himself a hard shake, he stood up straight and looked at Scott, who was the only safe place to look. "I have a shift tonight, so text me if you find anything."

Scott's eyebrows furrowed, clearly wondering why Derek was talking to him, but he nodded. "We'll make sure to tell you." 

"Good." Pulling his keys out of his pocket, Derek turned and walked away. 

He made it all the way to the parking lot before he heard someone yell, "Derek!" A scent drifted on the breeze, familiar enough that he could have recognized it in an open sewer full of dead, rotting animals. One of the exact scents that he'd been leaving to _escape_. 

Somewhere, there was a cosmic book written by some ancient, unknowable god. In that book was his name and the entry, "Not allowed to catch a break." 

Putting on the flattest expression in his arsenal, Derek turned to face Stiles. "What?"

Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at Derek like _he_ was the one intruding. "Jeez, sorry. I just wanted to invite you to come play bookworm with me and Allison."

"Research?" Like any of _that_ was actually going to happen. He'd seen how easy they crawled over each other. By midnight, they'd have already tripped themselves into bed. "I have work. What part of that slipped your mind?"

"The part where I'm pretty sure this mythical night shift is actually a front for avoiding us." In his pockets, Stiles' fists clenched and unclenched, and it wasn't until that moment that Derek realized he'd been watching the front of Stiles' shorts at all. 

He looked away, because dignity was one of the few things he had left. "I'm not _avoiding_ anything," Derek lied, gritting his teeth. "I actually do have a job, and I _am_ working a long night shift tonight." 

There was a pause, and then the sound of Stiles stepping closer. "Half true. You're totally avoiding us," he said, with a click of his tongue that was all judgmental. When Derek raised his eyes and made a face, Stiles just made one right back. "Come on, you think I don't pay attention to your little lessons on wolfitude? I might not be able to smell it, but I know when someone's lying." 

Hurriedly, he jerked his eyes toward the robin's egg blue Volkswagen next to Stiles. It was one of the newer models, the ones that never looked right. "Look, even if I didn't have work— _which I do_ —I'm not going to be a third wheel. If you actually spend any time researching, tell me what you find. Otherwise, I don't want to hear it. Okay?" 

Stiles took a step back—Derek would have liked to think it was from some sort of respect or fear reaction, but knowing Stiles, it was probably just his usual off-center gravity at play. " _Third wheel_? What— are— _date_?"

"Allison seemed to think so. You might want to talk to her about that." Derek relaxed minutely. A perfect specimen of suaveness, Stiles wasn't. If something were actually happening, that he knew of, he probably wouldn't be enough of a dick to invite Derek along. Probably.

Tilting his head, he watched Stiles cope with this news. First there was disbelief, followed by interest. Then interest was quickly replaced by panic. Finally, well-practiced denial settled in for the long crunch.

"Is this about the thing at the lake? Because that was just the water." His fingers did complicated, twisty things, like he could wring reality until that was the truth. "We're just friends. She doesn't want me like that."

"I have a nose. I know what I smell, and it was there before either of you hit the water." Derek shrugged. "Do whatever you want, just don't blame the lake for it." 

There was a perverse sort of joy in watching Stiles turn bright red and sputter. The flush climbed his face like a cartoon thermometer. Derek wondered if his head would actually pop when it reached his hairline, or if he'd just fall over like an overheated robot.

But then mid-muddle, Stiles' jaw set, and he snapped out, "Well, then, what about you?" 

Derek blinked. "What about me?" 

"You kissed her, too!" Stiles set his hands on his hips. It should have looked ridiculous, except that it just made it more obvious that he'd put on muscle and height over the school year. "You kissed _both_ of us!"

Deliberately, Derek took a deep breath of Stiles' scent, with its layers of soaps and adrenaline and anxiety, the bitter touch of medication and a heavy dose of hormones. "I did, didn't I?" Slowly, he let his eyes slide down Stiles' body and then back up. By the time he got back to Stiles' face, the anger was completely gone, replaced by a wide-eyed realization and a fresh coat of denial. 

While Stiles was still gaping, Derek grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him around and pushed. "Go to Allison. I have to get to work."

The way Stiles dug in his heels, it seemed like he was going to force Derek to carry him. But then he staggered forward, straightened, and took a step on his own.

Which of course meant he turned around again, pointing an accusing finger in Derek's direction. "Don't think this means you're getting out of talking about this, mister." 

Derek rolled his eyes. He turned back to where his baby was parked at the very end of the lot, where no one was going to slam open a door and dent her. "I wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

Allison stared down at her book without actually reading any of the words, eyes skimming over the pages blindly. Since the sun had gone down, the temperature in Stiles' room was actually bearable. She didn't feel like she needed to strip off her skin to cool down, which was a huge improvement over earlier in the day. It probably also helped that her hair was still damp from her dip in the lake. A change of clothes and a towel could only do so much. 

It was weird being there without Scott; every time she looked up she kept expecting to see him, leaning over Stiles' shoulder or falling asleep with his head on her leg. Broken up or not, they were still good friends, and that had been a sort of barrier between her and Stiles. Stiles was a Scott-extension in the same way she imagined that she was probably a Scott-extension to him. But with the Scott-shaped wall between them crumbling, things felt tense. 

It could have been Stiles' hands going up her skirt earlier that started the tension. That definitely could have had something to do with it. 

Stiles seemed to be feeling it, too. He fidgeted even more than usual, flipping between books almost as fast as he flipped between pages, grabbing up and discarding them almost immediately. Allison watched his fingers play over the binding of a library book on common mythology. Stiles had long, elegant fingers that were always in motion somehow. It was easy to picture how they'd look wrapped around his dick—or any dick. Derek's dick, maybe, jerking him off slowly, working him up until he actually knotted as he came. And they both had _amazing_ mouths...

The fantasy got all the way to Stiles licking the come off Derek's stomach before Allison finally gave up and slapped her book closed.

"This isn't working." With a flick of her wrist, she tossed her book aside. It thumped against the headboard, then slowly slid off the bed into a pile of bent pages and future library fines for damage. "We need to talk about what happened."

Nothing happened. Stiles stayed frozen, eyes down, hands no longer moving. He held the pose for so long that his eyes started watering, and she could see his nostrils flaring in suppressed attempts at taking a breath. 

Allison waited until tears were actually visible in his eyes before she squinted at him worriedly. "Are you breathing?" 

"If I don't move, you can't see me." Stiles' spoke without moving his lips. His face was starting to turn bright red from lack of oxygen.

It was actually kind of tempting to let him hold his breath until he passed out, but then it would just turn into another Stiles-esque level of avoidance. No one Allison had ever met could ignore something quite as thoroughly as Stiles could. And that included her father, who was the state "she's still my baby" champion. So she did the only thing she could do. 

She threw a pillow at him. 

The pillow nailed Stiles right in the side of the head. He went over with a gasp, clutching his chest dramatically. Before he could get up, Allison grabbed the other pillow and hurled it. It landed right in the middle of his face, making him take another breath in surprise.

"That's T-rexes." Allison paused for thought before adding, "And basilisks."

Stiles stayed sprawled prone on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "No, I'm pretty sure it's girls, too. How do you think I survived high school?" 

"Not because of your keeping-still skills." Using her feet to pull her along, she inched up to the edge of the bed before folding her legs so her feet rested on each knee. "But I'm serious. We should talk about what happened at the lake."

One of Stiles' feet twitched spasmodically toward the door. Almost as if it were going to abandon the rest of the body to its fate and save itself. 

"I didn't know there was anything to talk about," Stiles said, still staring at the ceiling. 

"Oh?" Wiggling, Allison inched a little closer to the edge of the bed, until she could feel herself wobbling right on the edge. "So we _don't_ need to talk about how we jumped each other?"

"Nope."

"Or how we came about three inches from tag-teaming Derek?" 

"Doesn't ring any bells."

"So we're not going to be adults about this?"

"I wouldn't dream of it." 

Pinching her lips, Allison blew up her cheeks like a chipmunk in annoyance and stared. _So that's the way it's going to be, huh?_ All right, she could play the tough game. 

Twisting her arms inside her shirt, Allison fumbled with the clasp of her bra. It only took a second to slip it off her shoulders and then pull it out from under the hem of her shirt. Then, taking aim, she pulled it back like a slingshot and let it fire.

The bra sang through the air, a piece of art in lace and elastic, arching up and then falling directly down onto the middle of Stiles' chest. He startled up and back, scrambling away like it was some sort of deadly bomb. 

"My shirt's next," Allison said calmly, grabbing the hem of said shirt and lifting it threateningly. "I don't mind being naked, you know. We can do it this way, or you can agree to talk to me, and I'll agree to keep my clothes on." 

Stiles was still staring at the bra. His cheeks had gone a blotchy red that should not under any circumstance have been cute. And yet... "Okay, okay, you win. We'll talk, just— just stay dressed, okay? I've had my fill of unfulfilled hard-ons today."

Allison rolled her eyes, but let her shirt fall again. Being braless was nice enough that she didn't think she was going to reclaim the damned thing; she was small enough to get away with it anyway. She flattened her lips as an uncomfortable thought hit her. "Is this about Scott?" 

"What? No, yo—"

"Because I love Scott, but we've been broken up for three years, and I think we're past the point where seeing mutual friends would be weird." Swallowing, Allison looked down. "Look, if you don't want... anything, it's okay. I just wanted to know. You're hot, and I like you, and I guess the lake thing made me realize how long it's been. But it can stop there." And then she'd just put on her bra and try to find a reason to leave as fast as humanly possible. And Stiles would never look at her again without turning red. 

_Good job, Allison. Way to ruin everything._

For the first time since Scott had left, Stiles looked her in the eye. The expression on his face was complete terror, which kind of ruined the moment. He held up both hands placatingly and slowly rose to his knees, then his feet. "Okay," he said, in the sort of soothing tone people used on babies and injured animals. "Okay, you just keep thinking that, and I'll... I'm going to go make a call, get some help, and we'll figure out what the water did to you, okay?

"Oh, for the love of—" Allison searched around for something else to throw, but all the safe options had already been tossed, and she didn't actually want to injure him. Yet. "It's not the _water_ , God, Stiles. Is it that unreasonable to think that I might want to make out with you _just_ to make out with you?"

"You think I don't know how sex magic works?" Stiles demanded indignantly. He still had his hands up, but he looked a little less like he wanted to run far, far away. "I spent like a week studying it. Do you know that twenty-six percent of video pornography has spells worked into the scene to distract you from the terrible writing? And that's just with visual cues. That water could have done anything to you!" 

"It made me horny, not out of control!" Unfolding her legs, Allison stood up and cocked her hips, crossing her arms under her breasts to push them up. "You were in the water, too. Did it make _you_ some sort of sex-obsessed maniac?"

"I'm a nineteen-year-old boy. That's sort of our default setting." Stiles was doing a perfect job of meeting her eyes now, which was just annoying. Allison was starting to see why Erica joked about having to back him into a corner; he was squirrelly as hell. 

Direct action was going to be needed.

"And I'm a twenty-year-old girl. Not that much difference, trust me." Putting one foot in front of the other, Allison stalked closer. Stiles sank back into the door, chin up, lips parted because he never seemed to be able to keep his damned mouth closed. She didn't stop until her knees touched the door on either side of his hips. The way he was leaning left him shorter than her, legs stretched out between hers, back pressed to the door. _Nice._

"Now," Allison said slowly, enunciating carefully, in case he'd forgotten how to speak English. She was pretty sure he'd stopped breathing. "Do you want to kiss me? Yes or no."

Stiles swallowed, eyes dropping down her just a few inches before jerking back up. "Yes?" 

Dropping down, she pressed her body to his, sandwiching him between her and the wall. "That didn't sound very sure," she teased, brushing the tips of their noses together. She imagined she could hear his heart pounding in his chest, could smell the arousal on him like a werewolf would. Once Scott had described it to her, what it was like to have sex with those extra sharpened senses, and she hadn't gotten it. But maybe it wasn't about species; it was about the chase. "I thought we were worried about sex magic?"

Instead of answering, Stiles surged up, nearly clocking her with his forehead. She jerked back to keep from getting smacked, but then one of his hands was around the back of her neck, pulling her back into a kiss. It was gentler than she'd been expecting; his mouth was always so animated, she felt like he'd be the sort to go straight for it. But instead he just brushed their lips together, little soft touches that became a little bolder with each pass. By the time his tongue slid between her lips, Allison was using the wall to keep herself upright.

He pulled away, tugging at her lip one last time before finally letting go. "Did that sound sure?"

"I don't know." Allison took a breath and flexed her knees. She could feel his dick right between her legs, perfectly placed to rock against. So she did, just to feel him jerk against her, a blotchy pink-red blush coloring his cheeks. "Say it louder?" 

She felt him shift, muscles tensing. Then Stiles' hands slid down and grabbed her ass, lifting her up to twist around and switch their positions. One of Allison's feet stayed on the ground, balancing on the ball of her foot, but she wrapped her other leg around his waist to grind against him. One of Stiles' hands went up the back of her shirt, warm palms sliding against the small of her back, calluses scratching faintly over tender skin. 

In the interests of fair play, Allison grabbed the back of Stiles' shirt and tugged it up. "Tit for tat?" she asked, pulling again. The entirety of Stiles' face went red, but he pulled away enough for her to get his shirt over his head and discarded. Hers went next, landing somewhere near her discarded bra. Immediately, Stiles' hands went to her breasts, squeezing and rolling them together. 

Skin was _so_ much better. Wrapping her arms around Stiles' neck, Allison dragged him back into a kiss, fisting his hair. It had been _way_ too long since she'd gotten any. Every time they moved together, heat spiraled up through her stomach. If they kept it up, she was going to end up coming without even getting a hand on her, and that was just unacceptable. 

Reaching up, she grabbed one of his hands and proceeded to shove it down the front of her shorts. 

Stiles' entire body jerked against hers, and probably his dick rubbed against the back of his hand because he shuddered again. But he forced his hand deeper, until those long fingers slid directly over her clit. Then it was Allison's turn to buck, her head smacking back against the door. 

"We should— maybe move this?" Stiles murmured without actually moving his mouth away from hers. His fingers curled up in her, though, which completely negated his point as far as Allison cared. "There's a bed. Beds are good."

"Beds are goods. Walls are, too." Pointedly, Allison rolled her hips down into Stiles' hand. "Do you have a condom?" 

"I—" Stiles looked like he was three seconds from taking himself out back for a good beat-down.

Since that would have required _moving_ , Allison thumped her heel against his leg. "Don't worry about it, this is good." Stiles' hand twisted, maybe accidentally, and it sent a shock through Allison that made her gasp. "This is really—"

Something buzzed against the inside of her thigh. Allison jerked again, but sideways. Flailing, she grabbed desperately for anything to grab and stay upright.

What she got was the doorknob.

It twisted, flying open under her weight and sending them both tumbling to the ground. The edge of the door rammed into Stiles' face. He crashed down with her, knee jamming into Allison's ribs as they landed in a tangle.

Propping herself up on her elbows, Allison groaned and shook her head. "No more doors."

"No more doors," Stiles agreed, rubbing his face. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket for his phone, which was still buzzing urgently. When Allison made a face, Stiles raised his eyebrows. There was a bright red line slanting across his forehead from the impact with the door. If Allison was any judge, it was going to be an amazing bruise by morning. "I think the moment's already gone. Might as well answer..." He glanced down at the screen, then grimaced and swiped to answer. "Hey, Scott, what's up?" 

Allison froze. Her hand, which had been headed toward Stiles' waistband, stopped mid-creep. 

"What?" Stiles continued, shaking his head like Scott could see him. "No, I'm fine. Just had an accident with the door. Yeah, she's still here. Uh-huh. Yeah, that sounds great. See you then!" Stiles hang up and threw his phone across the room, where it came to a bouncing rest on his mattress. Then he collapsed backward, arms spread out. "Scott's on his way over."

Calculations played through Allison's head, but no matter how she worked it out, there wouldn't be time to get off _and_ clean up enough that Scott wouldn't smell it on them. Shoulders slumped, she dropped her forehead to Stiles chest. "Damn it."

* * *

There was no such thing as a quiet night at Beacon Hills County Hospital. 

Even when things seemed slow, the building was always abuzz. There were always at least a hundred heartbeats in hearing range, thousands of tell-tale machines going about their noisy business, the casual chatter of nurses and staff that stuffed the last nooks and crannies of Derek's brain with an entire universe of sound. In a completely backwards way, he found the chaos soothing. There were too many things to concentrate on for his personal demons to have a chance to slip in. 

Of course, there were downsides.

"Is everything okay, Mrs. Wiletherd?" 

The tiny old lady in the bed smiled up at him benevolently, hands folded over her lap. She was at that age where her skin was tissue, and she smelled more like medication than her own, natural scent. "Derek, dear, I was hoping you were in tonight. I seem to have dropped my book. Could you be an angel and pick it up for me?"

The book in question was on the floor all the way across the room. Derek looked at it, then back at Mrs. Wiletherd. 

She smiled wider, batting her thinning eyelashes.

Sighing, Derek retrieved the book, making sure to squat down with his back to the door. When he looked back at Mrs. Wiletherd, her smile had faded into a pout. "Always ruining an old lady's fun, aren't you?" she asked sadly.

"You know you're not supposed to harass the nurses, ma'am," he replied, putting the book back on her bedside table. 

"Only you, dear, only you." But she opened up her book again, presumably to where she'd left off before throwing it as Derek Bait. He left her mumbling to herself about the plot twist. 

"Amelia again?" Sara at the main desk asked when Derek went to note the incident, lacing her fingers together under her chin. "You should just get someone else to handle her."

"I don't mind." As far as it went, Mrs. Wiletherd was one of the better patients to handle. Better than the ones who were crying in pain but too aware for him to surreptitiously help, and much better than the angry ones. By comparison, her games were just mildly annoying. Derek could stand to pick up a book now and then. 

"Of course you don't," Sara sighed, rolling her eyes fondly. "You're too nice to them." 

All Derek could do was shrug. "It's a slow week." 

"Weird week, you mean," she corrected, tapping the top of her computer monitor. "We usually don't get this many sex injuries outside of Valentine's Day."

"Sex injuries?" Since he had a moment, Derek edged around the desk to peek at her computer. Helpfully, Sara angled the screen so he could see better. Derek zeroed in on the reason for admittance, then winced in instinctive sympathy. "Penile fracture?" 

"That, torn ligaments, one concussion from impact with the bathroom wall and..." Sara tapped a couple of keys, then clicked over to another document. "A misplaced object. Probably got lodged in there when he fell. Not the weirdest thing this week, either."

Derek skimmed the document that came up. The name felt familiar, but he couldn't call it off the top of his head. "We've been getting a lot of these?"

"Yup." Sara said it with a little too much relish, beaming at the displayed paperwork like it was her personal piece of art. "Must be something in the water."

"Yeah..." Derek glanced at the time on Sara's computer. It was nearly midnight, but... "Hey, I'm going to take a dinner break, okay?" 

"Suit yourself." She gave him a quick, sloppy salute, then went back to her work. Before something could come up, Derek darted down the hall for the elevator, punching the button for the ground floor.

As soon as he hit the doors, he pulled his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial three while ducking around a corner. At the hospital, there was no actual private place to talk, but at least he could get out of the way. It seemed like it took forever before the phone started ringing through. "Come on, come _on_..."

After three rings, the phone clicked over. "Mrmhm?" a female voice mumbled, voice rising in question.

Derek blinked and pulled away to check his phone. But the picture was definitely Stiles, and the number was right. Carefully, he put it back to his ear. "Is Stiles there?"

The girl grunted, and then Derek made out the sound of the phone being awkwardly fumbled over to someone else. 

"What do you want?" Stiles demanded, voice thick and mumbly like he was tripping over his own tongue. "How did you get this number? Who are you?"

"It's _me_ ," Derek snapped. "I need you to look at the documents the sheriff gave us. Is there an Anderson Freland in there?"

Stiles groaned. There was a sound of bedsprings, then of a light clicking on. After a minute or two, he made a surprised sound. "Yeah, second reported incident. Something shoved him in the lake. He thought it was a girl—he heard giggling before he went under. Why, has something happened to him?" The sleep in Stiles' voice vanished between on breath and the next; Derek could nearly hear his heartbeat picking up excitedly. "Is there a body?" 

Sometimes, Derek was certain that Stiles only said things like that to screw with his head, and then there were moments like this. "No one's _dead_ , Stiles. But we're getting an unusual number of sex-related patients, and Anderson Freland is currently checked into BHMH with a broken dick. I thought it might be connected." 

There was a pause, and then, "Why are you at the hospital? I thought you were at work."

"That's not—"

"Any of my business, I know, I know." Derek could almost see the smug, asshole grin on Stiles face as he continued with, "But really, why are you there? Creeping around schools not good enough, you've got to perv on the morgue? Or—"

" _Stiles_ —" Derek started to say, hoping to warn him off, but Stiles was already on a roll. 

"Or do you work there?" Bedsprings creaked again, rhythmically, like someone was bouncing on them. "What do you do? Glower at patients in the emergency room? Carry dead bodies? Mop? That's it, isn't it? You're a _janitor_ , aren't you?"

"No, I'm—" Derek clenched his teeth, a growl building in his throat. "What I am is none of your business." 

"You really are! I nailed it, didn't I? You're a freaking _janitor_." The springs stopped, and bare flesh thumped against something muffling—carpet, maybe it was hard to tell for sure. By the sound of it, Stiles was doing a victory dance, probably still in his boxers, all pale skin and long legs. 

Derek jerked his thoughts away from that road before it could go anywhere it didn't belong. "I'm hanging up now."

"Come on, just admit it."

Patience. _Patience_. "I'm changing my mind. I want you to look up the connection between sex and water."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Sanitary Technician Hale."

"Thanks, Sidekick Stilinski." Derek thumbed the call to a close before Stiles had a chance to get in the last word. Then he sagged back against the side of the building and breathed in the cool, clean night air, free of the scent of medication and pain. That brief image of Stiles was still heavy in his mind, boxers slung low on his hips, shirt riding up. Maybe Allison was there, too; it had sounded like her. Which meant they'd been in one bed, or at least near each other. It could have been innocent, sacking out wherever they'd fallen after a long night of digging through old books. The way Allison had walked away from the lake didn't mean anything, the easy way Stiles had his hands up her dress was just the heat of the moment. The supposed study session together after. Probably nothing had happened worth thinking about.

Derek swallowed and willed his heart to beat slower, counting his breath and thinking about burned buildings and ashes and graves dug by hand until the urge to track down the two of them and pick up where they'd left off had passed. If there _was_ something in the water, it didn't mean he had to let it rule him. He could keep himself under control. 

He'd had a lot of experience with that over the years.

* * *

The parking lot of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital was depressingly full. Stiles took a moment to look around for any sign of the Camaro, but Derek must have found somewhere inconspicuous to park it. If an inconspicuous parking place existed for a car that was essentially a testament to overwhelming masculinity and possibly alpha compensation issues. The Washington Monument was more subtle. 

Allison wrapped her arms around her waist and twisted her head back to look up at the building. "I don't know what you think we're doing here," she said doubtfully. She'd borrowed one of Stiles' shirts when they'd gotten too tired to keep going and had collectively crashed, and hadn't bothered to change before they'd left. It wasn't too incredibly oversized, but it hung off her shoulder in a way that made Stiles realize he'd never gotten around to biting it. That seemed like a cruel injustice in the world. "Couldn't we just _ask_ Derek for more details?"

"But then we wouldn't get to see him at work," Scott said, swinging their prop bag. Unlike Allison, he had been completely for the plan of ambushing Derek at work. Because Scott was a bro, and if anyone was going to stand by Stiles' side and make fun of Bad Ass Leather Alpha in a janitor's uniform, it would be him. Stiles offered him a fistbump, which Scott accepted as his due. 

They wove their way through the parking lot to the cheery, modern lobby. Like most hospitals, it was designed mostly to make you forget that you were in a hospital, but there was only so much a decorator could do to hide sliding glass doors and the long, sterile halls beyond. Even the elevators were a little break in the illusion, with plain walls and scuffed linoleum that was at odds with the warm earth tones of everything else. 

At three AM, there was nothing more depressing than a hospital's front desk. The elderly black man staffing it had an expression of perpetual sympathy; he knew that no one came to the hospital during the night shift for good news. "Welcome to Beacon Hills Memorial. Can I help you?" 

Stiles blinked, and for a second, the whole world rose up like he was eight years old again and coming back for another night of waiting. 

"Hi, we're looking for a friend of ours, but we can't remember what floor he's on. Anderson Freland. Could you point us in the right direction?" In a flash, Scott had shouldered past him, putting himself between Stiles and the front desk. Whether it was Scott-instincts or just werewolf instincts, Stiles didn't know, but the break was enough that the world went back to the right size and the band around his chest loosened. The man's eyes slid over to him suspiciously, and he was able to make himself wave cheerfully. 

Folding his hands, the man frowned at them and peered over the rims of his glasses. It reminded Stiles a lot of what it was like to be in high school again, actually; being judged for things that were absolutely true but that the judger had no way of knowing. "It's a little late, kids," he said sternly. "You'll have to come back during visiting hours."

"Oh come on, please?" Allison stepped forward and leaned over the top of the desk. Her borrowed shirt lifted a few inches, showing off the curve of her ass under what Stiles was starting to appreciate were incredibly tiny shorts. Where Stiles was standing, he could see her smiling at the old man like he was her favorite grandfather and, incidentally, doing an excellent impression of someone whose grandfather hadn't been a murdering psychopath. "We don't even need his room number. We can just leave it with the nurse's station." 

Scott nodded eagerly, folding his arms on the top of the high desk and making a sad face. "He had kind of an embarrassing accident," he explained, voice dropping low like he was sharing a secret. "We just wanted to drop off a few things so he could at least wear his own clothes home."

"You know, give the man some of his dignity back," Stiles added helpfully, joining in on the other two sad faces at the desk. "Bad enough he's going to have an ice pack down his pants, can he at least have an ice pack down his own pants?" 

Apparently, there were indeed forces in the world that were immune to the combination McCall-Argent Pout Face. The desk worker held firm, lips pursing in a stern frown. But then his eyes slowly cut over to Stiles. "Ice pack?" 

Trade in gossip. _That_ , Stiles could work with. Lifting up on his toes, he draped himself over the desk. "Well, they were having kind of a special night," he explained, raising his eyebrows pointedly, "you know how it goes. And things got kind of... acrobatic, and..." He mimed dropping someone. "Broke it."

"He _broke_..." They guy's eyes went wide before he suddenly winced, and his chair rolled like he was trying to cross his legs. 

Stiles nodded, giving his best sympathy face. "Yeah. That." 

Wheels squeaked, and then the man whipped around to the keyboard. "Anderson Freland?" he asked, fingers tapping out the name carefully. "Eighth floor. You can just leave his clothes with Sara at the station, she'll make sure he gets them."

Allison beamed and bounced back. "Thank you so much!" she gushed, bouncing back a step toward the elevator.

"Mr. Freland's lucky to have friends who'd make the trip out here at this time of night," he said, waving them off toward the elevator. 

Once in it, Allison punched the button for the eighth floor. "Okay, so maybe you two _can_ come up with a decent plan. That still doesn't find us Derek."

"We'll have to split up," Scott said as the elevator jerked to a start. "If they call him up, we'll never find him. He'll just take a sniff and go hide in a closet somewhere."

Her lips twitched, but somehow she managed to keep from cracking up. Which was more than Stiles could do; his face went through an entire gymnastics floor show before he gave up and smacked his forehead against the wall.

"Ha, ha," Scott snorted, and Stiles could hear the eye roll. "Very mature." 

Stiles straightened up, glancing up at the digital readout of the floor number. They were on six—nearly there. "You said it, we didn't." He scrubbed at his face until his nose felt kind of warm and the urge to snicker like a kid in sex ed was mostly gone. "Okay, so Allison cut left, I'll cut right, and Scott's down the middle past the nurse's station. Turn on that charm, buddy."

"Don't _say_ it that way," Scott hissed as the door dinged open, face going red. "You make it sound like it's dirty."

"Because it is. It really is." Allison pecked his cheek and then slipped out the door, taking a sharp left turn. Stiles threw Scott a double thumbs up and followed his own advice, going opposite of Allison. 

If there was one place Stiles knew better than his own house, it was the hospital. He'd spent way too much time there with nothing to do but keep himself busy, and nurses tended to be lenient with little boys whose mothers were dying. They stopped being lenient when he stopped being adorable, but by then, he'd already learned pretty much everything there was to learn.

As far as search patterns went, Stiles tried to keep his methodical. He peeked in open doors, leaned around corners to scan dead ends, didn't bother checking places he knew would be locked. It was quick, thorough and about as much fun as a root canal. A couple of times, he had to duck behind a vending machine and once into an empty room to avoid wandering nurses and aides. Fortunately, he heard them all coming; rubber shoes squeaked on hospital floors in a way that he swore they didn't squeak anywhere else.

Which was why he nearly pissed himself when a hand slapped over his mouth and he was suddenly dragged into an empty office. Stiles twisted and squirmed, but the arm clamped around his waist didn't have an inch of give.

"What the hell are you _doing here_ , Stiles?" someone hissed in his ear. Claw tips pressed against his cheek. Flexing pointedly. 

"Derek?" Stiles asked. Or at least, he tried to ask. It came out like a piece of muffled performance art where they put a pillow over the radio and pretended it was deep. 

The hand loosened, and Stiles was able to squirm around. Sure enough, his favorite grumpy face—the only grumpy face that he liked—stared back at him, red eyes gleaming. There was just enough light coming from the cracked door that Stiles could make out how Derek's eyes changed color, from a dark ruby near the rim to something golden-orange near the pupil.

Then Derek flicked his forehead. Stiles staggered back, even though it had barely been a touch. "What?" he demanded, rubbing his forehead. The bruise that he'd gotten when the door attacked ached, but Derek had missed hitting it either by luck or design.

"What are you doing here?" Derek repeated slowly, exaggerating his mouth movements like he thought Stiles had suddenly gone deaf. He crossed his arms over his chest, muscles bulging under bright blue scrubs. His eyes stayed that same glowing, creepy red, because Derek had never grown out of school yard intimidation tactics. "I'm working, if you hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, and there's people ending up in the hospital with broken dicks. We kind of thought it was worth looking into." Still rubbing his forehead, Stiles straightened. Something was deeply wrong with what he was looking at, but it took a second to place it. "Why are you in scrubs?"

If anything, Derek's eye roll over the years had gotten even more dramatic. Probably it was a werewolf superpower. "Because I'm at work, idiot. What else would I wear?"

"But you're not...." In the back of Stiles' head, a lock went _click_. he blinked, taking a half-staggered step backward to balance himself against the shock of realization. Without better light, he couldn't see what was on Derek's name tag, but... "Dude, are you a _nurse_?" 

Like magic, Derek's back went stiff, and his shoulders drew up. Derek. Was defensive. It was surreal. "Yes."

"But that's awesome!" Stiles nearly yelled, arms flailing so hard that he missed smacking his elbow against the wall by an inch. 

It was Derek's turn to blink. The red faded from his eyes, eased away by either confusion or the soothing effects of Stiles' presence. Probably the confusion. "What?" 

"You can get the information for us!" Stiles gestured wildly in Derek's direction. "You have the access! All you have to do is go through the system and find statistics on sex related injuries and when they started peaking! You can totally do it!" 

Derek's eyebrows, which were really an entity in their own right, drew down. "Do you have any idea how much information that's going to be?" One of his hands rose up to flick toward the open door. "We're a tri-county hospital, Stiles. To get any sort of decent data, I'll have to go back at least a year, and that won't even be thorough enough. Someone will notice if I spend a week of shifts doing nothing but staring mindlessly at a computer."

Stiles, being a person designed by nature to spend his days staring mindlessly at a computer, made a confused noise. "But… computers?"

His state must have made it through, because Derek rubbed his forehead. "I can check on our five knowns," he said finally. "If they've gone to their GP, there's not much we can do short of breaking and entering—" Before Stiles could even get out a word, Derek held up a hand, palm out. "No."

"No what?" Allison peeked in around the edge of the door. When they looked up at her, she finished slipping in and smiled. The door clicked closed behind her. "I heard Derek talking. Your voice carries, do you know that?" 

The tips of Derek's ears, which had started to turn slightly pointed in annoyance, flushed pink. Stiles tried not to stare in rapture; he hadn't even known Derek could blush. "It's an alpha thing," Derek said, crossing his arms. "I have to be able to howl for my pack."

"Of course you do." Allison's eyes slipped between them, finally settling on Stiles. "I see you found him. Did you find out anything?" 

"Nope. I kind of got distracted." In explanation, Stiles gestured at Derek's Derek-ness. There was a lot of it, so he waved his hand again for good measure. 

"I can see why." Allison didn't try to be subtle as she checked Derek out. There was something about the scrubs and name tag. Like almost any other guy, Stiles had the occasional hot nurse fantasy, and while Derek was decidedly not in a white miniskirt and tiny hat, he was still somehow managing to make the same thing Mrs. McCall wore every day seem sexy.

Mom work clothes. _Sexy_. Stiles' libido could do weird things. Weird, hot, kinky things. 

One of Derek's eyebrows twitched at being ignored. It was almost as fascinating as the ear thing. "What did you want to know?"

"Everything." There was a chair nearby. Allison dragged it over, throwing one of her legs over the seat and crossing her arms on the back. "You didn't give Stiles any information at all, and if we're re-opening the sex monster angle, we need to know everything."

"There's not much to tell." There was a hint of red to Derek's eyes again, and he seemed to be refusing to look at either of them. He instead chose to focus on an innocuous bit of wall somewhere in between. Because that was subtle. "Freland came in with a series of relatively minor injuries. He'll check out tomorrow. That's all there really is to it. I can look up the others, but there's no guarantee they'll have come back here. And we don't have anyone else; I'm not doing a wide search for sex injuries."

Stiles and Allison exchanged a look. She tipped her head towards Derek with a questioning expression. For maybe the first time all day, Stiles actually gave a moment of thought to the possible consequences. But a moment was all he could stand; there were too many up-sides to really think much about the downs. "We do have some other subjects."

By the way Derek's face closed in, he knew exactly what Stiles meant. "No."

"We should at least talk about it." Allison leaned forward in her chair. It made her breasts push together and up. It would have given her instant cleavage if Stiles' shirt weren't so thick and concealing. "We can't pretend it didn't happen."

There was a subtle twist to Derek's eyebrows that clearly asked _why not_?

By some small miracle, Stiles resisted cracking a joke about having finally taught Derek avoidance tactics. He had a feeling Derek had known those for a long time before meeting them. He just didn't actually use them. "Because if it happened to us, it makes sense that it might have happened to the others." Moving deliberately slow, Stiles stepped sideways into Derek's vision so he either had to meet Stiles' eyes or look away again. "And that means it could happen to the next people."

When given the choice between obvious avoidance or giving in, Derek decided to go for the death glare. "You think something's forcing people to have sex."

"Not forcing. Encouraging." Allison rolled her shoulders forward, and yep, she was definitely working her breasts into view, t-shirt be damned. "I've worn out three sets of batteries in a week."

Derek's eyes drifted from Stiles to her, down to her chest and then back to Stiles before he finally just tilted his head to stare at the ceiling. "Stiles not helping you out with that?" 

"Stiles would, if he had a chance." Third person felt weird on his tongue. As he always did, Stiles immediately vowed to never use it again, and then immediately broke his promise. "But Stiles and Allison are around Scott a lot, and Scott is kind of not invited to play for obvious reasons."

"Scott's not here right now." Color was slowly starting to work its way from Derek's ears down into his cheeks. It was kind of adorable, and at the same time, it made Stiles want to lick it. That shouldn't even have been possible. 

"Derek is, though." Keeping her shoulders rolled, Allison stood up. Her shorts were so small that they nearly vanished under the bottom hem of the shirt. Stiles really, really liked those shorts. "We kind of missed Derek a lot." 

Sexy unison did not happen, because they were still new to this whole threesome thing, but Derek stepped closer and both Stiles and Allison managed to get their hands on his shirt to reel him in against them. The chair pressed between them, uncomfortably hard where it dug into Stiles' kneecap. He compensated by moving his knee between Derek's thighs. The scrubs were soft with use, even along the creases. Stiles slipped his hand under the hem of the overshirt to drag them over the thin shirt underneath. Clothing in the way or not, Derek's muscles were still firm and chiseled, and that was so unfair that Stiles might have had to cry if he hadn't had his hands all over them.

They were close enough that he could make out the pattern of facial hair that ran along Derek's jaw, and when Derek licked his lips, it was in pornographic detail. "I haven't..." His eyes flicked between them. "Been in a relationship in a long time. It's hard to explain to people."

There should have been some sort of clap of thunder at that word. _Relationship_. It did feel awkward, but when he weighed it on his tongue it didn't come packaged with an urge to run for the hills the way it had back on campus. And that alone should have been scary in its own right. "Why don't we just work this out as we go?" Stiles suggested.

"That's a terrible idea." But Allison was grinning as she said it, so it couldn't have been that terrible. Really. It wasn't like Allison had a habit of liking bad ideas. 

Okay, maybe she did. It was one of the things she and Stiles had in common, though, so that made it... probably more of a disaster, really. 

Stiles rose up on his toes to navigate around the chair. He was a few inches taller than Derek already, so the extra height gave him a straight sight on Derek's earlobe. As soon as he took a nibble, he drew back with his nose wrinkled. "Why do you taste like antiseptic?" 

"It gets everywhere." One of Derek's hands slid up under Stiles shirt. His other hand was MIA, but it barely mattered when Allison cursed under her breath and just climbed the chair. And then she climbed Derek, the kickoff sending the chair rolling across the room where it crashed against the wall. Her knees gripped his hips. A second later, she pulled back. "No antiseptic there."

"Really?" There wasn't room beside Allison, so Stiles took the next best angle and just leaned over her, trapping her between them and grabbing a kiss while he could. She hissed between her teeth when his dick ground against her ass, and later, Stiles was going to investigate that reaction thoroughly when he wasn't distracted by Derek's mouth and tongue and _oh God stubble_.

Then Derek was pulling away, and Stiles was not at all responsible for the noise he made. "What—"

"Guys?" Scott's voice echoed oddly in the hallway; he wasn't close enough to have found the door yet, but he was a werewolf. Sight was a _secondary_ sense. 

They all moved at once. Allison jumped down from Derek like her legs had suddenly given way, and Stiles backpedaled until he nearly tripped over the fallen chair. Their clothes were only in a little disarray, but Derek was visibly erect. Derek was hard, and the scrubs were doing nothing to hide it, and _Stiles couldn't do anything about it_ , what was his _life_?

Derek readjusted himself, but there was really no hiding that evidence. He must have realized it; his face did a complicated eyebrow-lips choreography that, if properly studied, could have given scientists years of data on human communication and body language. 

Stiles was so wrapped up in the problem of Derek's boner that he completely missed being Allison grabbing him by the back of the neck. She shoved him out the door and slammed it almost on their heels, leaving Derek stuck inside. Alone. With a boner. "Scent," she said, biting off the word and _oh, shit_ , yeah.

Less than a second later, Scott rounded the corner, his eyebrows drawn together in a worried frown. "Where were you?" he asked, looking between them. Stiles thought he saw Scott's nostrils twitch accusingly. "Did you find him?" 

"Yup, we did!" Stiles threw an arm around Scott's shoulders and started guiding him back toward the elevator. "We talked him into looking up the records on the other victims when he gets a chance. He's got something to take care of first." 

On Scott's other side, Allison made a choking noise. "Yeah," she said, a shade too brightly when Scott looked at her. "Something that really can't wait."

 _Like his dick_ , Stiles' brain helpfully added to the conversation. 

Sometimes, Stiles really wanted to smack himself. 

Fortunately, Scott wasn't a mind-reader. "Oh," he said slowly. His nose twitched again. "Why do you two smell like antiseptic?"

* * *

Allison woke up with her head on Scott's stomach and her legs stretched out to rest on the desk, a book balanced on her knees and her toes having gone mostly numb. Her entire head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Or hopefully cotton; there were worse things to have a head stuffed with. She'd spent a year in college, she knew the horror of the alcohol hangover. Book hangover was almost as bad, just with more data and less nausea. 

According to the clock, it was half-past six, which wasn't nearly enough sleep. It was, in fact, possibly an illegal number of snooze hours according to the College Freshman's Handbook she'd been given by no less than three Greek life reps: eight to study, eight to party and eight to crash. And the Handbook definitely applied; they'd managed to make a nest of old books and print outs like the world's most bookish magpies. The only visible difference between Stiles' bedroom and a dorm just then was that a dorm usually had less space to spread out in, more beer cans and less clothes. 

Sprawled in the middle of the bed, Scott snuffled adorably and rolled over, hiding his face from the encroaching sunlight using Stiles' foot. The bed crinkled as he moved; they'd even stuffed paper under the sheets. Up near the head of the bed, Stiles had curled up in a ball, clinging to a pillow like it was a life preserver in a sea of paper. 

Groaning, Allison rocked her way free of Scott and dropped first one, then the other foot to the floor. Her toes exploded in fireworks of tingly agony. Little shocks ran up her legs, past the kneecaps and all the way to her hips, jarring reminders of why it was a Bad Thing to fall asleep in weird locations. She wobbled, throwing out her arms to balance while her legs complained about being put back to use.

 _Coffee_ , Allison decided. Coffee would solve everything. It always did. First coffee, then murder. It was the best advice her mother had ever given her, even if Allison hadn't realized she'd been speaking literally at the time. 

One step was enough to make her reconsider. The fiery tingles in her legs, which had died down to mostly ignorable, flared up the second she tried to move. Surprised, Allison staggered, grabbing the edge of the bed for balance. She held on for dear life while her nerves came back from the dead and, zombie-like, tried to eat everything in sight. 

Maybe coffee later. When she could _walk_.

Every joint creaked in old lady protest as Allison lowered herself to the floor, legs stretched out to increase the blood flow. The book that had been balanced on her knees had fallen nearby. She picked it up, thumbing through while her legs got back to the business of existing, flipping through pages to look at the beautiful artwork depicting mythical—and mostly fictional—creatures. 

Sex, women and water-based mythology was surprisingly not a narrow topic, which she probably should have seen coming. Water monsters, it turned out, were either hideous and immediately deadly, or beautiful and coincidentally nude women. Who were also deadly. In fact, there really weren't that many _nice_ mythical creatures in general. Eating the bones of bad children were about as nice as they came. Even werewolves, which Allison had the most experience with, were routinely dangerous. It took work for them to _not_ kill people all the time. 

Allison turned the page and stared at a lovingly detailed picture of a turtle-thing eating someone's face off. She could feel her brain working in that sluggish, pre-coffee way it had, when everything was still moving slow enough that ideas had time to brew before they vanished into the mix of instant reactions and too much input. 

And that message was that something was _different_. 

Since Allison had started learning about what her family had hunted—not just the propaganda, but actual information—she'd mostly found that the myths were at least close to the button in some way. Werewolves transformed on the full moon, and even if a full wolf was a rarity, it still happened. Vampires drank blood and sunburned easily. Basilisks were ugly as sin, and so fast that it seemed like a single look was enough to kill. But most species flew under the radar precisely by not killing. Werewolves and vampires looked human most of the time and could control themselves. Basilisks spent whole decades curled up on sunny rocks in the desert. Kraken lived so deep in the ocean that they were hardly the only thing down there undiscovered.

And since all the myths they'd found of vaguely woman-like beings who hung around water were about violent death in one way or another, it stood to reason that any that weren't actively feasting on human flesh or seeking revenge for their own murders just weren't being noticed.

Which meant they looked human and, more to the point, were sentient enough to choose to _hide_. 

Allison must have made a noise of triumph, because she heard Stiles moan pitifully, and the sound of Scott grunting when—presumably—he forced Scott's face out of his foot. "Allison?" Stiles mumbled, the words only barely audible under the crackling paper. "Wha?" 

Twisting around onto her knees, Allison peered over the edge of the bed, fluttering her hands on the flat of the mattress. Her legs still felt weird, but the sleep was long gone from her head. "I think I know what we're doing wrong," she whisper-shouted, smacking the bed to make her point. "We've been doing _everything_ wrong! I figured it out!"

"Can you figure it out when it's not _six in the morning_?" Scott's voice started clear as a bell, but turned muffled by the end of the sentence. 

"It's seven, Scott. Almost seven. Practically seven." At the head of the bed, Stiles propped himself up. There were pillow and paper creases on his cheek, along with the purple-green monstrosity that was his bruised forehead. Idly, he pulled up his shirt to scratch that the dark trail of hair that vanished down into the waist of his pajama bottoms. "What did you figure out?" 

She did her best not to let her eyes wander. Really. Kind of. But Stiles was surprisingly fit for someone whose favorite sport was nacho cheese diving, and in the past week there hadn't actually been many chances to take advantage of whatever had been happening between them and Derek. Meaning there'd been no chances. None. She'd taken to jilling off in the shower every private moment to deal with it, which felt a lot like eating a tofu burger when there was a five star steakhouse right down the block. Two steakhouses. That served cheesecake, too.

Stiles stared at her expectantly, and Scott's nose twitched in that was he did when he was trying not to smell something. Allison flushed and looked down at the bedspread and the papers scattered across it. 

"Okay, so we've been trying to figure out what it is, right?" she asked, spreading her hands out. They'd landed atop a mixed pile of legends and ripped notebook paper that Stiles had been using to keep track of their theories. "But what it is doesn't _matter_ , does it? We don't care what it is, we just need to know why it's here and how to make it go away."

Silence. When she looked up, Scott had joined the land of the living, and also the subgroup of staring at her like she was crazy. One side of his hair was flattened down against his skull, and the rest curled like it had been permed. It was more than a little adorable.

"But I thought the rusalka thing sounded close," Scott finally said after a minute of blank staring, fumbling around in the mess that was the bed. Eventually he came up with a creased, slightly damp printout. On it, a mostly naked, dripping wet woman was busily trying to drown a guy with a visible erection. "Even with the drowning."

Understanding started to shove away the sleep in Stiles' eyes. Barely. He finished sitting up, using the edge of the bed to balance against until he could manage it unaided. "But it didn't try to kill us. It let us go," he pointed out. "None of the others, either."

"Almost like it wanted us in the water," Allison added in, giving Stiles a pointed look. They hadn't actually gotten around to telling Scott about the effect the water had on them. It was probably a mistake, but every time Allison tried to think of how to start her thoughts went blank. 

_Hey, ex-boyfriend of mine, it looks like the magic lake water made me want to fuck the freckles off your best friend and an alpha werewolf you can barely stand, and now I think we're going to end up doing it unassisted. Still friends?_

No. Just no.

If Scott caught what passed between Allison and Stiles, he did a good job of pretending that he hadn't noticed. "So what do you think we should do, then? Send out a survey?" His shoulders straightened, and his expression turned tight and kind of constipated. "Dear Resident of Beacon Lake, please fill out this forty word questionnaire. Your country thanks you." 

Stiles stared at him, then rubbed his arms with a melodramatic shiver. "Don't do that, dude," he said seriously. "Just don't." 

Scott's expression soured. "What? I know it's a stupid idea, but that was—"

"No, that's not it." Keeping his expression as firm as Allison had ever seen it outside a life or death situation, Stiles said, "It makes you sound like your dad." 

Immediately, Scott's arms went out from under him. He flailed backward, sliding off the other side of the bed and out of sight. The floor jumped under Allison's knees as he landed, legs propped up on the bed still. A moment later, he groaned quietly.

Leaning over the corner of the mattress, Allison peeked down at Scott's wounded face. There was a small bruise on his elbow that was already cycling through purple and on its way to yellow-green healing. "Are you okay?" she asked, biting her lip worriedly as Stiles flopped down next to her to look at their fallen Scott. "Ice pack?" 

One of Scott's legs kicked the air uselessly. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I'm fine. I think." Rolling his head, he gave Stiles the most beseeching eyes ever known to man or werewolf. "My dad? Really?"

"Sorry." Stretching out in order to reach, Stiles patted Scott's elbow. The bruise was almost completely gone, thanks to werewolf healing. "Happens to the best of us." 

"Ugh," Scott groaned dramatically, throwing an arm over his eyes. "No more talking about my Dad. Ever."

"Deal." Stiles held up a pinkie, which was duly hooked and shook in promise. "But you made a good point."

"I did?" Scott asked, at the same time that Allison said, "He did?"

"Yeah." Wiggling closer to the edge, Stiles grinned at them both. "Why _not_ just ask?"

* * *

"Because it's insane?" Derek crossed his arms and glared, which was his default expression whenever he was forced to deal with teenagers. He was still in his pajamas, having been dragged brutally out of a post-shift nap by the three assholes before him, all of whom were still in the clothes they'd worn the night before. Which wouldn't have been so bad, really, except they reeked of sex and antiseptic. Specifically, Stiles and Allison reeked of sex. Far more than they should have for even the most volatile of teenage hormones.

He could only assume that it was because the universe hated him. 

Stiles laced his fingers together and used them to prop his chin up. He looked much too comfortable at Derek's breakfast table for someone who had only visited a few times before. "But it makes sense!"

"I didn't say that it doesn't make sense; I just said that it's insane." Leaning back, Derek looked from Stiles over to Allison, whose eyes were fixated a good three inches below his chin. He cleared his throat, startling her into looking up. "You're usually the reasonable one, and you're also one of the people who nearly drowned. What do you think?"

As soon as he said it, Derek knew he'd made a mistake. Allison's eyes slid sideways, and she wiggled awkwardly in her chair. "I don't think that it was trying to drown us," she finally blurted out. "Nothing made it let us go. It could have just held on, or kept dragging us and you never would have caught up in time."

"It just wanted them in the water," Scott agreed, nodding like that made any sense at all. "We've looked over a ton of myths, and it's pretty clear. Usually when things drag you under, they don't really let go."

"There's even some that keep you glued to them so they can't let go!" Stiles piped in. He shouldn't have looked so eager to try this when playing bait with monsters tended to end up with someone landing in the hospital. Usually that someone was one of the humans, since they were the ones who couldn't take real damage without breaking.

And suddenly, Derek found himself very invested in making sure none of his humans ended up broken.

"And then they eat you," was Allison's addition. 

It was much, much too early in Derek's morning to discuss humans as food sources. "Exactly my point. And you want to go back in there? Absolutely not." 

Scott's face twisted in and he took a deep breath like he was going to say something, but then his whole body deflated and his shoulders rounded. Then, just when Derek thought that common sense and self-preservation were going to make a reappearance, he opened his mouth and said, "But we have to find out somehow. We can't just read books and guess and hope we're right." 

"It's worked before," Derek insisted.

"I'm not saying it's a good idea," Stiles said, and that wasn't at all reassuring. Being self-aware had never stopped any of them in the past. "But don't you think that Allison has a point? We've been chasing the wrong rabbit down the hole. Maybe we should be more goal-focused and less investigative." 

Groaning, Derek leaned forward to rest his forehead in his hand. He wasn't awake enough to deal with Stiles, never mind a Stiles who was trying to be reasonable. "All of the previous encounters have been unintended," he reminded them. "What if whatever it is doesn't like the idea of having someone knock on its front door deliberately?" 

"That's what backup is for." Allison folded her hands together on Derek's kitchen table. She, at least, looked like she'd actually given it some thought. "The only thing it's done that we can verify is drag people in. It might have made one guy stupid enough to hurt himself, but we can't guarantee that it was the monster that did it, so we can't really assume."

In the back of Derek's sleep-muzzy brain, something clicked over. "No," he said slowly, digging out the words. After Allison and Stiles had dragged Scott away and Derek had dealt with his... problem, he'd taken to one of the computers to do some "paperwork." There'd been a lot of it. "That was Anderson Freland's second visit since he'd been checked in for near drowning. The other visit was for a back injury that he refused to tell the doctors the origin of. And the other nurses say that there's been an increase in sex-related visits, but I can't back it up with paperwork."

Scott nodded seriously, tapping his fingers on the file folder in front of him. "And then the three of you make it a definite pattern."

The sudden silence after that was thick enough to cut. 

"Come on, you think I didn't notice?" One of Scott's shoulders rolled in an easy shrug, because there was nothing simpler than talking about your friends' suddenly active sex lives. Of course. "All of you are a live wire. I feel like I'm back in high school. Everyone's horny all the time. "

Stiles' face went from pale to cherry red, with brighter splotches of color on his cheek. "Sorry, dude," he said, shifting awkwardly in his chair, shoulders hunched up around his ears. "I didn't think you'd notice."

Derek kept his expression flat. "Is that all you've smelled?"

If Scott knew about _them_ , then there was either a new layer of complexity added or removed, Derek wasn't really sure which. He didn't particularly care if Scott found out, but from the way Allison and Stiles were squirming, they definitely did. He could understand that, even if he thought it was a bad idea. Derek had learned his lesson about secret relationships. 

"You don't smell like fish or anything, if that's what you're asking." Scott might have been trying to keep a straight face, but his heartbeat had picked up, and he was starting to reek of anxiety—adrenaline and stress and that special acrid odor of someone trying to lie to themselves. Clearly, he wasn't as comfortable talking about it as he was trying to appear. "No one's stalking you. That's why I've been making us all crash at Stiles' all the time. I figured that if something was manipulating you, it would be easier to protect you from it all together."

"Dude, you didn't have to." There was no way Stiles' face could have gotten redder without actually exploding. "We can kind of take care of ourselves, you know?" 

Scott's jaw tightened. "I wanted to help," he said stubbornly. "And I didn't really want to talk about why, so it seemed easier."

"Well, now that _that's_ out in the open, you don't have to anymore." Allison threw Stiles and Derek significant looks before reaching out to pat Scott's shoulder. "It's been almost a week, and no one's come near us, so it must all be automatic. You don't have to protect us all the time."

It looked like Scott was still going to protest. He had a look in his eye that usually came hand in hand with a bad idea. Derek knew that look; it showed up in the mirror a lot. "It's been a week. The effects are going to have to wear off eventually," Derek said, and he didn't miss how Stiles flinched a little. 

"Anderson Freland's been affected for four weeks," Scott insisted. "How long is it going to take?" 

"It doesn't matter because it's not hurting anyone." Derek kept his voice firm, the way his mother used to when she was pulling rank on them. Not that pulling rank on Scott ever worked. There was just something in Scott's makeup that resisted authority and tried to claim it at the same time. He would have been a good alpha, if he'd been older. "Freland's been affected for four weeks, and the only thing that's happened to him was caused by stupid choices, not anything supernatural." 

Almost immediately, Scott opened his mouth, and at the exact same time, Allison and Stiles both slapped their hands over it. "Don't," Stiles said sternly. Allison just looked faintly mortified, but determined. And behind their hands, Scott looked innocent as a newborn, wide eyes and cheeks plumped in a smile. Derek wasn't sure if he wanted to know or not. 

After a second, Scott's smile faded into a mostly hidden pout. He nodded, and the humans withdrew their hands. 

"Besides, we're going to be taking care of it anyway," Scott said, looking at Derek with a hopeful expression. "Right?"

"If he says no, will you still be forcing us into all-night research binges and impromptu slumber parties?" Allison asked, eying Scott warily. 

He just smiled and looked at Derek expectantly. 

If Derek didn't give in, he'd never hear the end of it from Allison and Stiles. Worse, his chances of getting time alone with either of them would plummet, whether Scott assisted or not. He could see it in their eyes.

For a moment, he seriously considered sacrificing sex to the cause of keeping them alive. Then someone's foot slid up the inside of his thigh. Neither Stiles nor Allison's expressions gave away whose it was. It slipped up to press against his crotch, bare toes curling.

Derek swallowed and scowled at them both. _That was cheating._

Stiles' eyebrows quirked upward, the little shit of a culprit. _I know._

"Fine," Derek bit out, pushing back in his chair to escape Stiles' questing foot. There was no way to readjust himself without being obvious, but he shifted in his chair until it seemed like he was mostly covered by the folds of his pajama bottoms. If he got hard right there in front of Scott at the _breakfast table_ , there was no way Scott could possibly miss what was going on. "But no one goes in without a line on them, and we're going to go over signals to indicate trouble until you can recite them even when you're drowning."

Under the table, there was a sound of rubber on linoleum; Stiles putting his shoe back on. "Flare guns?" he asked, far too perkily, because Stiles and fire were a thing that happened. A lot. "They work underwater." 

"And they'll also be seen as a threat," Allison said, frowning. "But going in unarmed seems like a bad idea."

"This whole thing is a bad idea," Derek grumbled. The start of the erection Stiles had caused had faded, so he pushed up from the table. His legs didn't want to work properly, so he needed a second to brace himself so his knees had time to come back online before wobbling toward the kitchen and sweet, sweet caffeine. The black sludge that it took to battle his metabolism and get any decent effect out of it was terrible, but it was better than living in a fog until midafternoon. Derek really, really hated post-shift early mornings. "I'm getting coffee. The three of you figure out which one of you is going to be bait."

* * *

Allison won the round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Scott relied too much on his werewolf senses. All she had to do was act like she was going to throw one thing, then throw something else. He'd only fallen for it twice, but in a round of three, that was all she needed. For his part, Stiles played it like it was a strategy game. She threw down scissors all three times and only lost the first game. Both boys finished with suspicious looks on their faces, but they couldn't prove anything.

On the car ride to the lake, Derek glanced over at her and said, "Your heartbeat and scent still give you away, you know. Even when you lie with your body instead of your voice."

Allison threw him a smile and sank down deeper into the soft leather seat cushions. "Really? I'll have to remember that."

He snorted, but she was pretty sure he was smiling. 

The lake was basically as they left it. There were a few new pieces of trash, but nothing that really mattered. She climbed out of Derek's car and crossed her arms over the top of the door, staring out over the water. There wasn't a hint of a breeze anywhere to be felt, but the surface was still rippling. There were probably completely normal explanations for that. Underwater streams, maybe someone swimming around a bend where they couldn't see. All sorts of normal explanations popped up when someone really wanted to find them.

Mrs. McCall's old Toyota pulled up next to them, parking with a rattle of metal and old, tired engine parts. Scott inched out of the driver's side, watching the lake like it was going to attack at any second. 

"I really don't like this plan anymore," Stiles said as soon as he climbed out of the passenger's side door with an armload of grocery bags. None of them had had a decent length of rope handy, and Allison had picked up a blanket, goggles, some food and an energy drink while they were shopping. There was no telling what she was going to face down there, and it never hurt to be prepared.

"You liked it fine when you thought you'd be the one going in," she reminded Stiles to distract herself from the nervous flutter in her stomach. Without looking at any of them, she bumped Derek's car door closed and started stripping. 

All three boys made strangled sounds. Even Derek, who she would have thought would be past the stage of being shocked by breasts. 

As soon as she had the shirt pulled over her head enough to talk, Allison demanded, " _What_?" 

The only thing in sight was three broad stretches of back and shoulders; they'd actually turned away. The back of Derek's neck was bright red, and Scott had his hand over his eyes, apparently not trusting his peripheral vision. Which was completely ridiculous; he'd actually seen her naked in a bedroom setting. Repeatedly. 

"You're not in a swim suit?" Derek made it sound like a question. A garbled, choked, slightly hoarse question, but a question.

"When did I have time to change into a swim suit?" Allison finished pulling off Stiles' t-shirt and lobbed it toward the nearest head. She ended up missing; it arced sideways and skidded over the top of the Jeep to catch on the antenna. "There's no point in getting one, anyway. If they _do_ try to drown me, it would just be something else for them to hold on to. Wet skin is slicker.

Stiles bowed his head, coughing. Allison thought she heard a strangled, "I know," somewhere in there. 

Snorting to herself, Allison unzipped her shorts, making sure to let the zipper make the most obnoxiously loud sound possible as she did so, dragging it out. Then she shimmied them down her hips, dragging her panties with them. This time, she threw the bundle of clothing at Stiles, accounting for the shifting weight of the fabric. It nailed him right in the back of his head, making him go down with a startled yelp.

She grinned. _Bullseye_. 

"I'm leaving my shoes on until we get down to the water," Allison announced. "Scott, pass me the rope." 

Keeping his eyes locked closed, Scott reached into one of the bags and groped around until he found the rope in question. A second later, there was the sound of a claw cutting through thick plastic and then Scott was awkwardly shoving one end of the rope behind himself, waving it in Allison's direction. 

Sighing, she grabbed the end of the rope. It was a thin nylon-polyester blend, tough as nails and a bright orange color that would hopefully stand out in the water. She wrapped it across her shoulders, between her breasts, and then around her waist for good measure before tying it off in an emergency release knot. There'd be bruises if they had to pull her free, but bruises were better than the alternative of permanent spinal damage. "Great. Have you three decided who the other end is going to be tied to?"

"Me." Derek's tone of voice didn't leave any room for arguing. He started to turn his head, then yanked it back the other way. "I'm faster in the water if I shift, and I can find you easier. Scott and Stiles will be secondary backups if something goes wrong." 

There was a protesting sound, but Allison couldn't pinpoint who it came from. She suspected that there was going to be a Talk about that once she was out of earshot. 

As long as she was tied to _someone_ , it didn't matter. "You might want to get naked, too, then. Just in case." Allison checked her knot, slipped the goggles around her neck and nodded to herself. It would do. It would have to. "I'm going in. Scott, start reeling out the line." 

The water was colder than she remembered. Last time had happened too quickly for her to notice, maybe, or it could have been the shock of being yanked in. Either way, when she kicked off her shoe and set foot in the slimy, algae-slick edge of the lake, it was like stepping into an ice bath. She froze and yanked her foot back, balancing precariously on one foot before slowly making herself put it back in. Pinpricks of cold ran up and down her leg, all the way up her spine. _This is going to suck_. 

All or nothing. That was what her mother had taught her. 

Pulling up the goggles to cover her eyes, Allison took a breath and threw herself into the water. It was shallow, but she still managed to get it in over her head. The shock of cold made her gasp. Her hair streamed icy water over her face and shoulders, blinded her for a second when she came up wrong. She kept pushing out until her feet could barely touch the bottom and the water got... Not really warmer, but tolerable. Number. The blanket was definitely going to be in use later. 

Using her toes to keep balanced, Allison looked back at the shore. Derek had apparently lost the fight for the rope; Stiles was the one she was attached to, with Scott holding on to the very tail end. She gave them a wave, then turned and dived.

The lake wasn't really all that deep by comparison to some. It was fed by mountain streams and connected to a bigger river down south. Allison pressed down as deep as she could before the pressure started to become too much. Then she hovered, looking around for any signs of their monster. 

It was dark, which shouldn't have been surprising. Even a few feet down, the glow of the sun overhead turned dim and murky, and the bottom was too far away to clearly see. Silver flashes of fish flickered in her peripheral vision; tiny things, far too small to bother with. No matter how hard she looked, though, there was no sign of whatever was pulling people in. 

Allison gave it until her lungs started burning before kicking her way to the surface. She broke with a deep gasp, arms and legs churning to keep herself afloat. Her hair was a ratted mess, and _that_ would teach her to go swimming without having it tied back. 

"Did you see anything?" Scott had his hands cupped to make his voice carry. He didn't need it; there was a tone in there that Allison could feel in her bones. If she'd had the breath for it, she'd have laughed. _Calling to pack_.

"Nothing!" she called back. A hard kick of her legs bobbed her up enough that Scott's eyes turned up toward the sky. "Maybe it's an afternoon thing? There's some creatures that only come out at certain times of day!"

"Keep looking!" Stiles didn't bother to cup his hands. "Even if it doesn't come out in full daylight, there'll be a sign, won't there? Just—" 

A hand wrapped around Allison's ankle. She had just enough time to gulp in a breath before she was yanked under. The pressure in her head and chest built as the light above faded sharply away.

Desperate, Allison thrashed, kicking out to try and land a hit. Whatever had hold of her just caught her other ankle and kept tugging. She felt the rope on her tug suddenly, crushing her chest. She coughed, sucking in a mouthful of water. Then, just as quickly, the pressure was gone, replaced with a steady weight on the end of the line and then a final tug that held firm.

The light was getting dimmer,, but not from above; they weren't moving anymore. Allison pushed away from her captors, kicking again, and finally, whatever it was let her go. Freedom didn't last long, though. Something else wrapped around her body, silvery fins glinting in what little light was left. It cupped her cheeks, pushing them together. 

Then it kissed her. 

Allison sucked in a sharp breath, startled to realize that she _could_. Another monster wrapped around her from behind, fins tickling her legs and something like arms gripping her under her breasts. Squirming just made them hold her tighter, like there was anywhere she could go. 

At least it was warm again. Much warmer, really. 

The kiss went on until her head stopped feeling like it was about to float away on the current. Bright blue eyes that reminded her of Jackson's glowed in the water when it pulled back. The details of the face were lost to the lack of light, but it looked mostly human. Finny, and the hair moved like seaweed, but human. Definitely the arms holding her felt human. And the breasts against her back, too. 

Sharp, biting echoes bounced around in the water, making Allison's skin tingle. Three—four? Maybe five, there were shapes out that that were mobile, but Allison couldn't see well enough to verify. She waved her hand at the one in front of her, then pointed up. 

Heads cocked, more bird than fish. The one holding her in place nestled its cheek against Allison's hair, tugging at it. Its hands slid down, fins kicking between her legs like they were nothing. Scales slid against her back and ass, muscles flexing like no human possibly could. When one hand slid between her legs, Allison gasped in water and yanked away, coughing. Almost immediately another one of the creatures caught her and reeled her in, forcing air into her lungs while someone else petted her hair from behind. 

She could have boiled the lake water on her cheeks.

Escape time. It was _definitely_ escape time. Allison might have lived an extremely complicated life, but if she was going to get felt up by a supernatural creature, this wasn't the one at the top of her list. Twisting around, Allison pushed up on the arms of the one petting her. It shoved her body down and let her angle herself out of the way. They grabbed for her, but she dodged and kicked up toward the light. 

The water filled with the flash of fins, silvery blues that were nearly invisible until they moved. They were fast, faster than any human she'd ever seen in the water. Two of the monsters moved in front of her, blocking her upward angle. When Allison cut to the side, one of them came up from behind and grabbed her again, wrenching her around by her arm. There was light enough to see what they were now, and what they were was _mermaids_.

The word felt like a bubble in her throat, threatening to escape and waste precious air. Of _everything_ they could have been on the hunt for, it had to be _mermaids_. Herbivore mermaids. Mermaids who hadn't actually significantly harmed a human being in so long that even Gerard's bestiary said they weren't a threat. _Those_ mermaids.

At least she wasn't going to drown.

Just as the one who'd caught her started winding herself around Allison's body, something big and black barreled through the school. The three mermaids scattered with high-pitched trills of alarm, one of them grabbing the little one by the wrist and hauling it away so quickly Allison was bumped upward by their waves. As soon as she was free, Allison kicked for the surface. That last lungful of air was starting to run short on her. 

About halfway up, the big black thing came up beside her, four giant paws churning the water like paddles and its eyes glowing bright red. Grateful, Allison wrapped her hands in Derek's neck scruff and let him pull her along. 

They surfaced in a part of the lake Allison had never seen before. A breeze rippled across it, cooling and fresh, sweet in her lungs. The edges were sheer rock about three feet high; hypothetically climbable, but only hypothetically. She tucked herself close to Derek and looked around for anything that might give them a hand up, or even a sign pointing toward a beach they could. There wasn't anything, because in real life there were never handy props laying around when you needed them.

"Are Stiles and Scott still holding the rope?" she gasped, leaning in to clutch Derek's neck. It was ridiculously thick with muscle, making her wonder how he was even staying afloat. That much muscle should have sunk immediately.

Derek nodded his head, then shook all over, sending water flying from soggy fur. He was doggy paddling for all he was worth, and doing a surprisingly good job of it, all things considered. The alpha form, when executed by someone who wasn't a deranged psychopath, was essentially identical to a wolf in the wild if that wolf happened to be about the size of a pony. 

Allison gulped down another lungful of air, sucking it in until it hurt and then releasing it slowly. She wasn't quite riding him, but all she would need would be a slight shift in her weight to make it happen. Flushing, she squeezed with her knees and tried to find a way to hold on that wasn't intimately embarrassing. Fur, it turned out, was an interesting sort of texture. 

_Stop it, Allison. Focus._ "We'll follow the rope back. We can do that, right? Mission accomplished." 

Snorting, Derek twisted his head around and rolled his eyes to look at her. She could _feel_ the sarcasm in his expression.

"Fine, mission not accomplished until we're safe on shore." And then... Something. It was getting hard to think around the softness of Derek's fur, the surging of his shoulders between her thighs. Every time he moved, he rubbed right _there_. It was everything Allison could do not to press herself against him and... 

This was going to be a problem. A really awkward problem. 

Biting her cheek, Allison tucked her face against Derek. If she'd hoped wet dog smell would save her, she was out of luck. He didn't really smell like anything other than Derek. "We should find a shore."

Little splashes announced their visitors as first one, then three heads popped out of the water in a ring around them, watching them with pale eyes. The mermaids looked mostly human in daylight. Their hair was a uniform gray-brown, and their skin had a shade of blue that seemed to fade into the water. Some sort of webbing framed their face instead of ears, running down their neck into their shoulders. When one of them raised her hand, it was webbed, too, and her fingers ended in long claw-like nails. 

"We apologize to the alpha and his human," one of them said, voice high-pitched and echoing. "We did not realize that you were not a..." Her lips framed words for a moment. "A playmate." 

Between Allison's legs, Derek huffed a damp snarl. It rumbled up his throat and down into his chest, vibrating through her core. Allison petted him carefully, scratching along his throat and tried really hard not to think about it. "I wanted to talk to you, that's all."

Their formation shifted a little, bringing them in closer. "Talk, human woman?" The spokes-mermaid eyed them with suspicion, but Allison thought there was some curiosity, too. "Your kind do not talk with us. Not for many years." 

"We are now," Allison said firmly. "We want to know why your school is in our lake. You're not fresh water people, are you? It's a long way from the sea." 

"It is far, yes. But..." The mermaids exchanged uncertain glances, pursing their lips. One of them let out a trill that dipped and wavered on the end. At the far edge of her hearing, Allison made out a high-pitched noise. It must have been something in the werewolf register of sound, though, because Derek let out a soft whine and shook his head, splashing his nose in the water. One of his paws swiped at an ear between paddles to stay afloat. 

A fourth splash appeared, right in the center of the school. A tiny, gray-brown head peeked shyly above the edge of the water. She waved, and her claws were still soft and rounded at the tips. The way she swam bumped her over against two of the larger ones, who watched Allison like she was some sort of vicious monster.

"Fresh, clean water is needed for some things." Even with the odd vocal range, the mermaid managed to sound smug. 

"I... see." That wasn't in any of the bestiary pages that she'd spent a week looking over. She was going to have to add notations, and hope she could figure out how to address questions like _how did a mermaid get a hundred miles inland_? 

Under her, Derek made a huffing sound and kicked his hind legs enough to bounce Allison on his back. She rocked forward, coming an inch from cracking her chin between his pointy ears. 

Right. They couldn't exactly hang around for answers. "What are you doing to the water? What's wrong with it?"

The mermaid dipped down, gills fanning out. "The water is nice?" she asked, the question fading off into a trill. "You do not think so? We don't do anything, it just is."

"It's very nice," Allison hurried to reassure her. "But it makes other people act strangely? More..." There was no other way to say it. "More aroused?" 

There was another round of trilling conference before the spokes-mermaid replied, "Are above-waters not always breeding? It seems to us they are." She flipped her hair, seemed into indicate that non-mermaids in general were too weird to understand. 

Allison couldn't really disagree. "And how long will you be in our fresh water?" A cool breeze ran down Allison's back. Shivering, he leaned in closer to Derek to escape it, and if it ended up pressing her breasts to the back of his neck that was a price she had to pay. "Not to rush you out, but there have been some accidents? People falling in?" 

"A season." The spokes-mermaid said it with absolute finality. "And we will prevent further accidents."

One of them nudged the baby mermaid, who bobbed in the water guiltily. 

They could probably get the lake closed for the summer, right? There had to be some sort of strings that could be pulled. Especially since the mermaids didn't even realize they were doing anything to it. "Great. We'll just... get back to shore. Thanks for your time."

The mermaids swam in a circle, conferring, but apparently decided not to switch from being herbivores today. As one, they dived; the little one went last, ducking under so quickly that it looked like she'd been yanked. Maybe she had been.

Allison gave it a second to be sure they were gone, then slipped off Derek's back. The fur was really getting too personal, and she wasn't going to make him carry her when she wasn't even injured. She wrapped the rope around her hand, giving it a light tug. It was still mostly loose, so they couldn't be that far from Scott and Stiles, right? "Come on, let's find a beach."

They followed the rope roughly in the direction they'd come from, angling close to the nearest bit of shore. Derek paddled about ten feet away, keeping a sharp eye on her every move, like he thought she'd get grabbed by mermaids again. The edge of the lake twisted in a bizarre puzzle, full of blind corners and narrow nooks that didn't actually go anywhere. 

After the third promising turn that became a dead-end, Allison had had it. The water wasn't getting any cooler on her skin, and every time she moved her legs it sent a shock through her. She needed _out_. Ignoring the tug of the rope and Derek unhappy grumble, she swam for the rock shelf at the end of the crag and lifted herself out and curled up into a ball. It was shallow there, only a few inches deep. Not enough to dry off, but enough to rest. It would have to do. 

"It's fine," she said when Derek stayed in the water and stared at her with judging eyes. Or maybe those were just Derek's usual eyes. It was hard to be sure under the Wet Puppy look. Rather than look at him, she closed her eyes. "Just go tell the others that I'm taking a break. Hold the rope and I'll be right behind you."

The breeze wasn't even cool; she should have been freezing by then just from that. When she scrubbed her face, it felt hot to the touch. It took every ounce of will she had not to rub her legs together, to reach down and finger herself until the damned ache went away. 

She just needed a second. Get Derek out of the way, and she'd take care of it. Then she'd be able to focus. Really.

Derek's splashing got closer. Allison heard a scrabble of sharp claws grating against rock, and then she was showered in water. 

Allison yelped and covered her head until Derek finished shaking his fur dry. Laughter bubbled up in her chest, escaping before she could muffle it. In revenge, Derek shook again, splattering her face with water. Then he sat, hunched forward awkwardly watch her. He whined low in his throat, ears pricked forward.

"I'm _fine_ ," Allison insisted, pressing her knees together. He could damned well understand English, even when his vocal cords had been realigned. "Go on. Shoo!"

Still keeping his head low, Derek shuffled forward. There really wasn't much room in the nook, and it put his head right next to her legs. His nostrils flared as he breathed in. 

It was probably her imagination, but she thought his eyes went redder. Definitely her face did. "I swallowed some water, okay?" Allison sat up, pushing herself into full view. "So either you can give me some privacy, or stay for the show, but there's no way I can make it all the way back to shore and _home like this_."

He _looked_ at her, eyebrows pinched together and that was just _stupid_. Wolves didn't have facial expressions like that. Except apparently Derek did. And just then, his face was _knowing_. He shuffled forward some more, pressing a cold nose to one of her knees. 

The touch sent a shock along her skin and straight to her cunt. She gasped in a sharp breath between her teeth. Derek's nose slid up her thigh, nuzzling down into the crease between them. Allison felt that she really couldn't have been blamed for the way her legs fell open when she scooted back closer to the wall. Really. She couldn't. He was just _there_ , and her whole body was one great big wire that someone had plugged into the Beacon Hills power grid. 

Derek settled between her legs, using his shoulders to push them apart. She could feel his breath against the inside of her thigh, one softly furred cheek against her skin. He snuffled at her, working his way higher until his nose wedged into the crease of her hip and thigh. It was so close to what she wanted that she could have cried. And underneath, hanging heavy between his hind legs was his cock. The thin sheath of fur had already been pulled back, leaving it bare and impossible to miss from her angle. It was pink, shiny and oddly shaped, as inhuman as the rest of him. 

And it was big. _Really_ big. 

_Can he change back?_ she wondered frantically. And then, a second later, _Does it matter if he can't?_

No. Not really. 

She'd be a liar if she said she hadn't had a couple of vivid fantasies about Scott, and there was an actual alpha _right there_ where she wanted him. They could work out the rest of the details later.

Taking a tight hold of her courage, Allison let her legs fall wider. Her foot splashed in shallow water, finding a rock to brace against. "Do you want to?" she asked, meeting his eyes. "I do if you do." 

Red eyes went wide, and for a horrible second she thought she'd somehow completely misread everything. Then Derek twisted his head and his tongue ran over her, and any worry about that was long gone. 

Allison moaned, tangling her fingers in his ruff. A canine tongue wasn't any good for delicate work, but it made up for it in breadth and strength. He covered _everything_ , lapping at her cunt from end to end in one long swipe. 

"God— _Derek_ —" She slid down the rock face, twisting her hips up so he had a better angle. Allison's breath came in sharp, hard gasps as the heat curled through her stomach and up into her chest until she thought she might burn up from the inside out. The need to move, to push him over and just _take_ was hard to swallow back. Knowing that it didn't work that way didn't help. 

Somehow, against all reason, he managed to curl his tongue and push it _into_ her. Allison's hips bucked down hard, rolling against him. The feeling of his teeth against her just made her rock down harder while he worked her cunt open. She came with a long, choked cry, her vision flaring to white at the edges.

Derek pulled back while she was still recovering, teeth bared in a canine grin. Laughing breathlessly, Allison bopped him on the shoulder with her heel. "Yeah, you're the alpha."

She was still hot, tense with need. Even Derek breathing on her made her shiver. He was warm, even with the fever burning under her skin. All she wanted to do was curl up against him and maybe rut, work herself off until she could think straight. Clearly swallowing the water was worse than just being exposed to it; who knew how long the effect would last.

Her mind caught on that thought. "You swallowed the water, too, didn't you?" she asked, reaching down to run her fingers across the edge of one ear. 

A sound that was a little too rough to be a purr, too gentle to be a growl rumbled in Derek's throat. He bumped his head up into her hand, his whole body undulating into the touch. His cock swayed underneath him, thicker than she was used to seeing, maybe a little intimidating. But _God_ , she wanted it. 

Swallowing, Allison leaned forward to cup Derek's cock. It felt abnormally smooth in her hand, slick and strange and perfect. She bit her lip and ran her fingers over it. The bestiary was very, very clear about what someone dating a male werewolf could expect when they really let go. The writers had probably meant them to be warnings, but Allison had needed a long shower after reading those entries for the first time.

Maybe that made her sick; she really didn't care. 

"Come on, then." Throwing her leg over, Allison twisted up onto her knees, shallow water splashing up her thighs. The mermaid toxin wasn't strong enough to overcome the butterflies in her stomach, but probably nothing would be. 

Derek sniffed the back of her thigh, tongue flicking out at her skin in tiny, teasing licks. Allison counted her breaths, fighting to keep them from turning into needy panting. That lasted right until Derek swiped his tongue over her still-sensitive cunt again. A high-pitched whine stole from her throat as she bucked against him, sliding her legs even wider.

Fur slid along her back, soft and damp, rubbing more than tickling now. Derek was careful as he mounted her, keeping his claws carefully away from her skin and not letting her take anywhere near his full weight. Allison might have appreciated it more if it hadn't slowed him down so much. 

"Don't _tease_ ," she snapped, throwing herself up and back. Her weight pressed up against Derek's stomach, grinding her hips back against his cock. Compared to the probably-hundreds of pounds of mass he pulled out of nowhere for the change, her thrashing was nothing to brag about. 

He growled, teeth snapping close to her ear. One giant paw stayed on the ground to balance him as he lifted himself up. His cock pressed against the lips of her cunt, sliding down along it. Allison pushed back again, whining when it ran over her clit. There was too much water and saliva for her to be really slick. It made Derek's almost-thrusts sharp, tugging, and she was pretty sure she was going to go out of her mind before he got around to it. 

"Come on, come on, come _on_." Once she'd started moving, Allison couldn't stop herself from rocking back. Every bit of friction buzzed under her skin with promise, added to the heat that was eating her up. It could be _so much better_ , she knew it could. Derek just had to get with the program.

Above her, Derek grumbled. Something warm and wet gripped the back of her neck, sharp points digging in almost carefully. Instinctively, Allison froze. She felt a warm wash of breath run over her neck when Derek huffed a laugh at her. His weight shifted, leaning back, and—

Allison bit her lip as his cock spread her open. She stayed absolutely still, not daring to breathe, unable to even moan. Derek's breath washed over her skin, his fur rubbing her with every move, every sigh and shift of his weight. She could feel how tense he was, how hard he was working to keep control. 

Then he stopped, barely halfway in. Outraged, Allison threw her head back, ignoring the prick of teeth—of _alpha teeth_ , what was that about risky sex? "Don't you _dare_ ," she growled, baring her teeth like it would mean anything to a creature so much bigger than she was. "I want you to tie me. You can't do that if you wimp out now."

Derek's answering noise vibrated in his chest, down through her back and ribs. She clenched around him, gasping when that won her a little surge of his hips. It still wasn't enough, though. Not even close. 

Bracing herself, Allison threw herself backward, pushing down onto his cock. With Derek's hold on her neck, she couldn't do much, but she managed a couple of inches. "Come _on_ , Derek. I can take it. _Please_." 

That was the magic word. The teeth left her neck just in time for Allison to be knocked forward by Derek ramming into her all the way, and then again, and again. His weight pushed her down as he worked his cock in her cunt in erratic, desperate thrusts.

The bumps of the rope still tied around her were sudden shocks of different sensation, sharp and harsh against the incredible heat of Derek's body. Water splashed up into her skin, drenching her front, wavelets driven by their movements. If she focused, she could hear his claws sliding against the rock, a constant skittering under the water. 

Allison groaned and dropped down for better leverage. It clenched her tighter around him, and she could have sworn Derek groaned. He surged forward, skidding her across the rock. One of her hands pressed against the wall to keep from moving forward any more, and it was just barely enough. Derek had himself braced and was set on fucking her in two, a fate Allison was decidedly okay with.

She could just start to feel the swelling at the base of his cock, a hint of the knot. Arching her back, she pressed into him, timing it as best she could, making sure he went deep every time. With one hand keeping her from knocking herself out, she slid the other down between her legs. Two fingers was all it took, rubbing down on herself for a few seconds before she came again. Her body clenched down, and Derek threw himself forward. His knot expanded, the sudden rush of new pressure, new stretching and heat pulsing through her with his orgasm. 

After that, Allison didn't even need to touch herself. It was almost too much, just at the good size of painful, stretching and pushing. She came again as his knot tugged at the edges of her cunt. The entire world went fuzzy at the edges. It narrowed down to his cock, his knot, his weight above her. His cheek rubbed against hers, a long, pink tongue snaking out to lick at her nose. 

"Well," she said hoarsely, "that's going to be hard to come back from. Way to ruin a girl." Derek wasn't even thrusting anymore. He didn't have to. The smallest movement was enough to make Allison moan again, even though she was dead exhausted. And they were going to be stuck like that for a while. 

There were worse things.

* * *

Beacon Lake was pristine blue, marred only by a few waves and the reflection of the puffy white clouds overhead. It didn't look like the horror movie setting that was the rest of Beacon Hills life, that was for sure. It had been way, way too long since Derek had changed shape and dived into the lake. 

It had been even longer since Allison had vanished. 

The rope around Stiles' chest was taut, matching his nerves. He wasn't sure if that meant something bad, or something worse. It could, hypothetically, mean that everything was fine and there'd just been a critical rope malfunction, and later they'd all laugh and make jokes about shitty Home Depot rope to the confusion of everyone around them. More likely, it meant that Allison and Derek were drowned at the bottom of the lake being dragged a few more inches every time he tugged.

"I don't smell anything, and it's quiet," Scott said, panting slightly from his jog upwind. He was damp, but only from sweat. They'd both managed to avoid actually going into the water somehow. When Allison had gone under, Derek had reacted before Stiles could grab the rope and get himself dragged in. After seeing an alpha werewolf take a literal dive into shallow water and not be able to stop anything, Stiles' puny human arms trying to keep Allison from being dragged farther had seemed kind of pointless. 

Stiles glanced once at Scott, then turned his attention back to the water and tugged the rope again. _Pull pull catch pull_. It didn't really want to move, but that didn't stop Stiles from giving it a hard yank. "Derek would have howled by now, right?" he asked. His sneakered toes dug into the gravel, wiggling into holes they'd started making a half hour ago. By now, he was close to burying both feet if he wanted to. "If he could, I mean. He'd have called." 

"Maybe they're trying to come back on their own?" Rocks skidded, and Scott sat next to him. "They're not dead."

"They're not safe, either." _Tug tug._ "This is my fault. It was my stupid idea." 

"Your stupid idea that Allison and I agreed with." Scott dug his elbow into Stiles' ribs, making sure to twist it in a sensitive spot. When Stiles yelped and yanked away, rubbing the new bruise, Scott looked at him the way he used to when full moons weren't even on their radar of things to worry about. "Just trust me, okay? I'd know if Derek were dead, and I think I'd know if Allison were, too."

Still rubbing his ribs, Stiles gave Scott a Look. It deserved the capitals. "So then what do you think's keeping them? Playing hide and seek with the lake monster? Doing each other's toenails?"

"Allison's terrible at nail polish." 

Growling, Stiles shoved his shoulder. "And how do you know _that_?"

Scott just grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know?" 

Stiles mock-growled, which would never sound right in his throat since he'd heard the real thing. "Seriously? That's your great comeback? Have I taught you nothing?" 

The smile on Scott's face softened. He scooted over until their shoulders touched, a firm, warm presence. "You taught me everything."

There was no way Stiles could pass off the sudden lump in his throat as anything but what it was, so he didn't even try. "Yeah, well..." Shrugging, he bumped their shoulders back and turned to face the water again. "It was kind of a mutual, study buddy sort of thing." 

They didn't say anything for the next who-knew-how-long. Stiles had a watch, and a phone, and could probably guess by the angle of the sun if he was really pressed. He just didn't. He didn't want to count down the minutes, to calculate how long a person could go without air against how long an alpha werewolf might be able to.

After the fifth time something splashed and Stiles jumped, Scott stood up. He toed off his shoes, then reached behind his back to yank at his shirt.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second." Stiles held up his hands just in time to keep Scott's shirt from smacking him in the face. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going in after them." Scott had moved on to his fly, undoing what appeared to be a myriad of buttons. It was just as uncomfortable as it had been in the locker room. Scott was his _bro_. He was not going to ogle him like a cheap piece of werewolf meat.

Except that he was totally going to ogle him like a cheap piece of werewolf meat. Scott was _ripped_ , and Stiles was not ashamed to admit it. That didn't mean he was going to get away with throwing himself into a lake. "So you want to die?" Stiles demanded as Scott switched from one foot to the other to yank off his shorts. "You saw what happened to Allison? This—" He grabbed the rope that was still attached to his chest and gave it a shake. "This is our lifeline, Scott, and there's only one. Don't do this, dude."

"No, Stiles, don't stop him. The water's great!" 

As one, Stiles and Scott turned.

Allison was making her way from rock to rock, pausing on one before launching herself at the next in line. There was no sign of the rope tied around her chest and there was a lot of visible chest for it to have been tied around. Derek followed about ten feet behind her, paddling like a puppy. A giant, red-eyed, toothy puppy. 

Without thinking, Stiles scrambled to his feet and rushed into the lake until the cold water lapped at his knees. "Where _were_ you?" he demanded. "What happened?" 

She clambered up onto a rock and clung, head hanging low. "The rope got caught somewhere and snapped." By then, they'd gotten close enough that Stiles could almost hear her without the need to shout. "I think I got pulled a mile or two along the shore, and there's no place to get out." 

"We were worried!" Scott yanked his shorts back on, a hundred times less gracefully than he'd taken them off. There was one-legged hopping and a significant amount of flailing involved. He fumbled in the bag they'd brought, pulling out a towel and the blanket and holding them up like a WWE Championship Belt. "Come get dried off. Are you okay?"

Water splashed as Allison dove back in rather than answer the question, which pretty much answered it for her. Still, she was getting to shallower water, and what Stiles could see of her skin—a lot of skin, he couldn't help but notice—she looked more flushed than cold, and any bruises didn't seem to have developed yet. 

When she reached the point where walking was an option, Derek slid in next to her. He was still in alpha form, which meant his shoulder came up to her ribs, and she was able to cling to him like a furry crutch while her legs got used to the idea of ground again. 

Stiles grabbed her as soon as she was in reach and took over her free side, doing his best not to look down no matter how much he wanted to. That just would have been crass. "Come with Uncle Stiles and Scott, we'll get you taken care of. And your little dog, too."

Derek snapped lazily at him but slipped free of Allison's grip and allowed Stiles to take her weight. He trotted onto the beach, black fur dripping to form a giant puddle under his paws. Then he shook. Stiles threw up an arm to cover his face, but it was a paper umbrella in a hurricane. By the time Derek finished, Allison wasn't the only one soaking wet.

"Thanks." Scott shook his head sideways to clear his ears. "I needed a bath anyway, I guess."

Allison laughed and let Stiles finish dragging her out of the water, pulling away to grab the towel from Scott to wrap around herself. "We have good news and bad news. Pick."

"Bad news," Stiles said, right as Scott said, "Good news." 

They looked at each other, and Scott's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Bad news." He toed one of the pieces of rock around. "But under protest."

"It's better to hear the worst first," Stiles said in a sing-song as he bent down to dig through their Bag Of Holding. "And save the best for the rest." After a bit of rummaging, he found Allison's canvas sneakers and offered them to her in his best Prince Charming impersonation. (He may or may not have been obsessed with that movie in childhood; his father and Scott were the only two who knew, and they were sworn to secrecy.)

One by one, she slipped on the shoes, grabbing Stiles' shoulder for balance while she cleared the worst of the dirt from her foot. "Bad news: they're not leaving until fall, and there's nothing we can do to force the issue. The sheriff is going to have to close down the lake or something." 

Stiles grimaced and kept his eyes on Allison's surprisingly sexy (yet still not boner-inducing) ankles. He'd never actually paid close attention to the specifics of his dad's work, but locking down an entire lake without good reason was bound to be full of paperwork. "And the good?" 

"They're mermaids." Wiggling her foot, Allison made sure her shoes were clear before balancing on her own two legs again. "Herbivores. All they want is to be left alone." 

That... didn't sound right. Glancing over at Scott, Stiles saw the same deeply puzzled frown on his face that was no doubt on Stiles'. "But," Scott said, slow and methodical, "mermaids are salt water."

"It's complicated." Derek's human voice made Stiles jump and whirl, and then whirl again the other direction because _pants_. _No pants_. "Since they're mostly salt water, there's no chance they'll stay around longer than they have to. All we have to do is wait them out."

"And we're _sure_ of that?" Because it was a choice of places not to look, Stiles busied himself pulling out Allison's clothes and offering them up behind his shoulder for her to grab. "They could be lying. It wouldn't be the first time sirens tried to pass themselves off as mermaids and ended up eating a lot of people."

Scott shook the dirt out of Derek's clothes; they were kind of a mess from being ripped off in a hurry, but they were mostly intact. He bundled them up and tossed them towards Derek. "If it was sirens, someone would have died by now, right? They can't go that long without food, and there's not enough big game around here for them to eat that instead."

Clearly, Scott had been doing his research. Stiles was impressed, and a little embarrassed. Usually he'd be the one making sweeping statements of fact that explained everything. Of course, he'd been a little distracted. 

A lot distracted. Derek stepped into Stiles' view, and it was clear from the way he was tucking himself in that he'd forgone underwear under his jeans. He also hadn't bothered with his shirt, which, really, was par for the course with werewolves. "We should go tell the sheriff what we found."

"We can't shower first?" Stiles grumbled, glaring down at his soaked jeans. The back half of him was fine, but from the front he looked like he'd been hit by a hose. There'd been super soaker fights where he'd come away drier. 

But Derek was right. He really didn't want to have to drag this out. The longer they waited, the more chances Scott was going to have to protect them from getting laid. "Alright," he grumbled. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

Sheriff Stilinski liked not being fired for being crazy and believing in mermaids, so nothing in his possession could directly reference anything supernatural. Allison took charge of writing up the report of their findings, as the one with the most experience not directly referencing things like mermaids. Her family tended to not keep records, and she was a fast typist when she needed to be. In the fifteen minutes it took Scott and Stiles to order food, she already had it done and ready to print from her tablet.

When they handed the paper over to the sheriff, along with a heart-healthy bag of dinner, he didn't look amused by her creativity. 

"Moss." The sheriff's expression could have been carved out of wood. He thumbed the half page report, like if he looked at it long enough it would make more sense. "You expect anyone to believe it's _moss_?"

Allison shrugged, smiled, and tried not to squirm. The chairs were hard against bits that had gotten a good, hard workout that usually didn't see nearly that much action. Sitting still was starting to kill her. "The clean water is allowing plant life to bloom again, but the species that usually keep it in check haven't come back yet. That's why people keep slipping in. Give it a few months, and it'll be back under control."

Slowly, the sheriff blinked. Then he reached into his dinner bag and pulled out one of the new low-fat, low-sodium fries the burger place down the street was doing. He bit into it, paused to give the fry a dirty look, and then kept eating. "And what's the real reason? Please tell me it's not trolls again."

"Trolls?" Scott and Stiles said simultaneously, then twisted to give Derek looks identical to the one the sheriff had given the fry. 

Derek shifted from foot to foot, eyes locked on the wall. "It was just a minor bridge incident. No one was hurt." 

"Except Officer MacKenzie's pickup." Dissatisfaction with the fries had finally led the sheriff to reach for the ketchup. The joke was on him; Allison knew for a fact that Stiles had gotten the low-sodium packets, because he was a cruel person. "So it's not trolls. Good news. What is it, then?" 

"Mermaids." Derek's expression stayed completely neutral. Allison was impressed, but maybe she shouldn't have been; Derek had been doing this a lot longer than any of them had even known about it. "They migrated in for a few months, and they'll be migrating back in fall. We just have to wait it out." 

"Mermaids?" Patience must have been something learned from raising Stiles. The sheriff's expression locked in rictus of long-time suffering as he looked to her, then to Scott and Derek, and then to his son. "Aren't those salt water?"

"Not always," Allison said, while Scott and Derek chorused, "Yes," and Stiles added, "That's what _I_ said."

Allison shot them all a sharp look, then continued. "The mermaids said that they need fresh, clean water for breeding. Our lake just happens to be freshly cleaned up. That's why they won't go until fall; the baby won't be old enough to travel before then."

"The baby. As in, a baby mermaid?" Allison nodded, and the sheriff swirled his fry in his ketchup, staring at it like it held the secrets of the universe. "There's a baby mermaid in Beacon Lake. They don't tell you to expect this stuff when you go out to get elected."

He kept working his fry without actually eating it. Allison twisted her hands and waited, starting to sweat a little. With two werewolves and three humans in a small office, it was starting to warm up past what the air conditioners could help with. Or maybe that was just her. 

Shifting around in her chair, she crossed and uncrossed her legs, fidgeting. She only stopped when Derek shot her a look. He was starting to look a little flushed, too. It had to be the office. Except that Scott and the sheriff didn't seem affected at all. Even Stiles seemed mostly okay. 

_Damn it._

After the clock had ticked though an endless number of seconds, the sheriff finally put down the fry and leaned back in his chair. "I can't put up barriers around a lake because the moss is too slippery. You can't give me anything else?" 

"What about the weird thing happening with the water?" Scott asked.

Casually, Stiles stretched out his leg and stomped on Scott's foot. Hard. "There's nothing happening with the water," he insisted, which might have been more believable if he hadn't been turning bright red. "It's fine."

Of course, it never worked like it did in movies. While Scott hunched over his healing foot, the sheriff turned his attention to his son. "What's happening to the water?"

Stiles squirmed so hard that it was amazing he didn't slide all the way off the chair and to the floor. "There might be some sort of thing where the water is acting like an aphrodisiac." He steepled his fingers, playing them together in a rhythm that probably made sense in his own head. "Maybe a little."

"A _lot_." Scott rubbed his foot and gave Stiles a hurt glare. "You can't smell what I smell, man. It's pretty intense."

The sheriff's eyebrows had started to climb steadily upward. His eyes skimmed over them, to Derek, and then jerked away. Allison was suddenly aware that her hair was still damp. "Is it, now."

In the corner of Allison's eye, she saw that Stiles had finally gone still, chewing his lip. _Chewing his lip._ Allison met Derek's eyes and saw the same tight, pained look on him that she felt. 

_Archery. Think about archery._ The bow in her hand, eyes on the target. Breathe in, breathe out. Stay relaxed; don't tense up. _You can do this, Allison. Just hold on a little longer. A little. Longer._

"But if people stay away, it won't be an issue, right?" Allison scooted to the edge of the chair, then back an inch when it put pressure _right_ where she didn't need it while in a room with werewolves and the sheriff. "It's not narcotic or anything." Probably. "And no one's been hurt." Close enough to true.

Being helpful for maybe the first time in his life, Derek threw out, "Closing the area around the lake will be enough to contain any effects."

There was another long silence because Stiles had gotten his sense of the dramatic from his father. The man stared at them like he could see the source of every bruise, every almost-bite and quick grope when Scott was out of sight. Allison honestly would have rather dealt with her father. She knew her father. Sheriff Stilinski was an unknown threat.

"I don't like it, but I don't seem to have any choice." The sheriff grimaced and flicked his hand toward the door. "Go home. I've got to come up with a plausible excuse for why I'm closing down an area of the preserve. An excuse that isn't _moss_." 

Allison leaped out of the chair, tripping over first Stiles, then—when he tried to catch her—Scott. She flashed a nervous smile at the sheriff, grabbed the boys and hauled out of there like an angry unicorn was on her tail. 

Derek had already made it outside, and was leaning against his Camaro like a complete douche, jingling his keys. "Stiles, you're with Scott, right? I'll take Allison home. I'm headed there anyway."

It was actually nowhere near his loft, but Allison nodded anyway. As long as she didn't actually call him out on it, maybe no one would notice. "Thanks." 

Stiles frowned, face clearly telegraphing that he knew what he was missing. His mouth turned down, a sad little pout making the bottom lip stick out, and all Allison wanted to do was _bite it_. That couldn't be healthy. "Yeah, I guess I'll be seeing you later? Maybe I'll stop by and we can compare mermaid notes."

Immediately, Allison brightened. They could milk the _comparing notes_ excuse all summer, if they had to. "That would be great! So we'll see you later?" 

"Uh..." Gravel and dirt shuffled. Scott looked fixedly at the cars and shifted from foot to foot. "I'm kind of supposed to be meeting my mom for dinner again. In like..." He checked his phone. "Thirty minutes?"

The frown on Stiles' face turned from faintly jealous to overtly scandalized. "You're supposed to be my ride!" 

"I'm sorry!" Scott's expression could have been the dictionary definition of hangdog. "I didn't think it would take this long."

Allison threw her arm over Stiles' shoulders and yanked him toward the Camaro. "Go have lunch with your mom," she told Scott earnestly. "Derek and I can take care of him." 

Under her hand, Stiles froze. His entire body locked up, and Allison caught herself petting him before she stopped. She settled for rubbing the back of his neck with her thumb, where Scott couldn't see it. _When did his shoulders get this broad?_

"I don't know..." Scott shuffled around some more, looking between Derek and Stiles. Then he squared his shoulders. "I can be late. It's fine." 

"No way, man." Under Allison's palm, she could feel Stiles swallow. Judging by the way Derek's nostrils flared, that wasn't the only giveaway. "You'll owe me a Halo marathon."

Relief swamped Scott's face; he was really focused on the whole Spending Time With Mom thing, which Allison would have thought was incredibly sweet if she hadn't fixated on the warm skin under her palm. "Deal! I'll call you when I'm done." One wave, and then he was gone, trotting back to his car at double-time. 

More than aware of how sensitive a werewolf's hearing could be, Allison waited until the Toyota was actually pulling out of sight before saying, "So. Can he still hear us?"

Derek tilted his head, eyes shuttered. "Not now." 

"Oh, thank God." Grabbing a fistful of Stiles' shirt, Allison shoved him back against the Camaro's passenger-side door and slammed their mouths together. Her leg slid between his, grinding and getting a little gasp and shudder for her effort. His mouth was soft and warm and absolutely wicked. Allison gave some serious thought to just pushing him to his knees in the parking lot. 

A warm, muscular arm wrapped around her waist from behind, reminding her that arrests for public indecency weren't on her summer to do list. She let Derek pull her back, swallowing down air. Her cunt ached with the need to rut up against something, anything. Derek's dick pressed right against the top of her ass, practically begging for her to push back against it, even though it was a terrible idea. 

"Um. Hi? That was unexpected." Stiles' mouth was pink and wet. He licked his lips, making both her and Derek groan. Then he reached down to adjust his dick, and Allison had to bite her lip. "Good, but unexpected."

"We swallowed water. It's still... a problem." Derek's breath ran over Allison's ear as he spoke, grinding forward into Allison. 

Shivering, Allison ground back, eyes slipping closed. When she opened them again, Stiles was staring at them, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. 

She grinned. "You want a ride?"

* * *

Later, Derek would wonder how he'd managed to drive back to the loft without wrecking. What he and Allison had done in the lake had taken the edge off, but he could still feel it sliding through his veins. It was like wolfsbane, that constant burn and the feeling of something _other_ attacking him. But wolfsbane had never made him want, had never been a pleasant burn. 

Allison and Stiles were in the backseat—necessary, since Allison's attempt to claim the front had come with a blowjob, and not even werewolf reflexes could make that a good idea. But there wasn't much room back there, which meant there was no hiding, either. Every time Derek checked his rear view mirror, he was treated to Stiles' bare shoulders as Allison shoved his head down, or of the back of Allison's head when she pinned Stiles to the seat by his dick. 

Derek pulled into the parking lot with a sharp yank and took the first spot that was open, double-parking shamelessly. He wrenched open his door, but Stiles was already climbing over the center console. He planted himself in Derek's lap, one leg on the ground outside, the other wedged between the console and Derek's hip. 

Their mouths slid against each other in what was barely a kiss. Stiles bit and played, sucking at Derek's tongue while his hands slid up over Derek's chest. He ground down against Derek's erection like it was the only chance he'd get. Sharp red bites littered his neck where Allison had chewed on him, already starting to turn into bruises. Grabbing a handful of Stiles' hair, Derek pulled his head back and overlaid those marks with some of his own, sucking until Stiles cried out and his hips bucked. 

In the corner of his eye, Derek saw Allison clamber out the other side and vanish out of sight. A second later, she'd grabbed both of them and was bodily yanking them from the car. " _Out_ ," she panted, teeth bared in a snarl. A primal, usually buried part of Derek's mind pointed out that she would have made an excellent wolf. Before he could do anything stupid, though, she'd grabbed their wrists and was leading them away. Derek had just enough strength of mind left to kick his door closed before they were out of range.

The stairs vanished in twos and threes. The building was nearly empty, only a few recluses like himself caring to live somewhere so out of the way. That meant that there was no one to see when he and Stiles trapped Allison in the corner of a landing and kissed her until sex right there seemed like a brilliant idea. It took Stiles, arguably the most sober of them, to pull them away before they risked ending up on the sex offenders list for indecent exposure and public lewdness. Derek was starting to have some sympathy for Anderson Freland, if this was what swallowing lake water could do to a person. 

They made it to Derek's loft, and then inside, although Derek didn't remember how. As soon as the door closed, Allison stripped off her shirt and lunged for him, hopping up like Derek was a gymnast's springboard. Her knees gripped his hips, arms tight around his neck as she kissed him until black stars threatened unconsciousness and he had to remember how to breathe again. She climbed higher, pushing up until she was actually above him, hair falling around his face in damp tangles.

Meanwhile, Stiles had already gone after Derek's jeans. They were still damp, and stuck horribly as Stiles tried to pull them down. Each yank threw Derek a little off balance and made him stumble backwards. Stiles got the jeans to the knees, then yanked. Derek stepped back to kick them off, shoes having been sacrificed while he'd been preoccupied with Allison. Stiles, the little shit, grabbed his knees and _pushed_ at the same time as Allison threw herself forward. Trapped between them, Derek overbalanced and fell, landing right in the middle of his bed.

Allison adjusted to the change in position without a break, moving from clinging to Derek to straddling his ribs. Her hands braced on his chest, nails digging in. Red welts rose up and faded in their wake, barely existing before they were healed. 

"I am not going to be the only one naked," Derek muttered around Allison's kiss. His hands slid up the bare backs of her thighs to tug on her shorts. 

She laughed and bit his lip, pushing back into his hand. "But I've been naked all morning, and you're so pretty like this," she teased. "Don't we get to enjoy it?" 

Kneeling at the foot of the bed, Stiles kissed the inside of Derek's thigh. Then he bit, right down over the muscle. Derek bucked up instinctively, sending Allison flailing forward for balance. Stiles held on though, grabbing Derek's knee to pin in down and sucking at the spot. He let go, and a cool wash of air ran over Derek's skin, the new bruise throbbing in time with his blood. 

" _That_ should last for a while." Stiles ran his fingers up Derek's thigh again, planting kisses as he went. His tongue snaked along the fold of Derek's thigh and hip, making his hips rise again. Derek's hard cock bounced against his stomach, twitching when Stiles ran his tongue across his balls. Then Allison's weight settled over his stomach, holding him down. 

While Derek was strong enough that it didn't actually matter, he took the hint. Instead, he slid his hands up her back and under her shirt. Allison arched into the touch, and in a second, Derek had her shirt stripped off, exposing the long, smooth lines of her body. The air between them smelled like sex and fur. _She_ smelled like sex and fur, and she was still marked where he'd been locked against her. His nose found the spot on the side of her neck where he'd held her pinned with his mouth, breathing in.

Lines of tiny bruises littered her back and ribs where Derek's teeth and claws had gotten her before. There were only a few scratches, though, and no punctures. Derek brushed his fingers over the worst ones. He hadn't been careful enough. The whole _thing_ had been dangerous. "Allison, I..."

Before he could apologize, or even say anything, Stiles wrapped his lips around the head of Derek's cock and _sucked_. Allison's mouth sealed over his, swallowing Derek's shout in a new kiss. His fingers dug into her skin, right over old bruises. She hissed and rocked against him, the thick fabric of her shorts scraping against his abs. Somewhere, a phone rang, but Derek was beyond caring.

Then Allison was pushing up, guiding his head down her neck to her chest. Derek wrapped his lips around one of her nipples and sucked, tongue sliding across it as Stiles bobbed down, swallowing more of Derek's cock. It was impossible to focus between the two of them. He didn't even notice his claws were out until he heard something rip and a piece of Allison's shorts came free in his hand, utterly shredded. His fangs pressed against her skin, just this side of puncturing through. 

Allison didn't seem to care, though. She groaned, cradling the back of his head and rolling her hips down at the same time as Stiles swallowed. "You might as well finish that."

Red edged around Derek's vision as he flexed his claws, and more cloth ripped. He nipped at her breast, leaving a new bruise behind as he curved his claws to keep them from skin and tugged. It was thick, stiff denim, and it parted like tissue paper. Blue shreds scattered everywhere as he tugged away the last bit.

One of Allison's hand's fumbled, grabbing his wrist and lifting it up. Her tongue slid across his finger, then along his claw before taking the whole thing in and sucking.

Sudden cool air washed across his cock as Stiles pulled off and up the bed. Derek snatched at him, grabbing his shoulders and yanking him up into a kiss. 

Stiles wasn't nearly as far gone as they were. His kisses were slow and methodical, hands soft where they splayed over Derek's shoulders. The frantic beat of Derek's heart slowed, the heat under his skin ebbing back to match Stiles' easier pace. Alpha red vanished from the edges of his vision, leaving the world slightly out of focus. 

"Easy," he murmured, petting down Derek's chest soothingly. "We don't want to lose you yet."

Allison wrapped her hand around Stiles' cock, plastering herself against his back. "He can last," she said, grinning. Teeth flashed as she nipped at Stiles' ear. "Now, how are we going to do this? Derek in middle?"

Two pairs of brown eyes looked at him. Just then, Derek probably would have agreed to nearly anything that ended in orgasm. "Middle is fine," he said, then cleared his throat. "Lube and condoms in the beside drawer."

A bright pink flush colored Allison's cheeks. "Condoms!" She threw herself to the head of the bed, yanking open the drawer noisily and rummaging around unnecessarily; Derek didn't keep much else in there. A second later, she came up with a handful of supplies and chucked them into the middle of the bed. 

Stiles grabbed up the bottle of lube triumphantly. He swatted at Derek's hip, pushing him over onto his stomach. "I want it noted that I'm not making a dog joke right now." 

"Your sacrifice has been noted," Derek drawled, spreading his knees on the bed to give Stiles space. It had been a long time since he'd been with a man; it was just easier to find women to sleep with. Stiles was good, though. He warmed the lube up between his palms before sliding it between Derek's ass cheeks, long fingers massaging in gentle circles. 

The first finger pressed into him, gentle-slow and absolutely a torment. It wasn't enough to hurt, and he suspected that was what Stiles had been aiming for, but it wasn't what Derek wanted. He shoved back greedily, hissing between his teeth when it forced the finger in to the knuckle. " _More_."

Flat human teeth snapped at his ass, leaving a bruise that throbbed there for only a couple of seconds. "Pushy," Stiles accused fondly. The touches became less uncertain, though, which was good enough for Derek. "If I didn't see your balls, I'd think you were in heat."

Derek snarled, but pushed back into Stiles' hand anyway. "Shut up." 

"Yeah, Stiles. Shut up." At the head of the bed, Allison settled in with her knees on either side of Derek's head. Her fingers slid through his hair, combing it up into spikes. The blush had faded back into the general, full-body flush of sex. It went all the way down her chest, nearly to her navel. 

Derek dipped his neck between her legs and breathed in deep. _There_ she smelled the most like him; the lake hadn't been able to wash away the evidence of what they'd done entirely. Red crept back into his peripheral vision. When he flexed his fingers against the bed, the tips of his claws caught on the sheets. His control felt shredded; it was barely hanging on at all. That should have terrified them all. 

Allison's heartbeat stuttered. "Going to put that mouth to good use?"

A second finger pushed into him, twisting deep. The sharp, burning ache felt good. Stiles' voice was a low hum, anchoring him in the here and now. Lowering his head, Derek nuzzled Allison's cunt, flicking his tongue over her clit. Her breath caught, so he did it again, wrapping his lips around her and suckling. With his fangs pressed to the insides of his lips, he couldn't do much, but he was less restricted than before.

She seemed to think it was good enough. Her hands tightened in his hair, nails digging into his scalp, and her hips tilted up. Derek dragged his tongue along her cunt, tracing the finer lines of it the way he hadn't been able to when he'd been on four legs. His fingers were out of the question, claws dug deep into the mattress. But his tongue seemed to be enough. Allison sighed, stroking down the back of his neck. There were calluses on her fingers. They scratched faintly, making him want to arch up into the touches. 

Behind Derek, Stiles twisted his fingers and curl them, probing. When he brushed Derek's prostate, the red in the edges of his vision flared and spread. engulfing everything. His fangs pressed against Allison's skin, and he could feel a growl vibrating in the back of his throat, low enough that it was more a vibration than a sound. The tips of his claws rested against her hips, prickling the skin, and her whole body shuddered, hips rocking down into his mouth.

"I think," Stiles said breathlessly, "that we'd better get on with this. You good, big guy?" 

Derek pulled away from Allison, struggling to find human words. He closed his eyes tight and counted back. When he opened them, he was still teetering, but not entirely gone. Not yet. It wasn't often that he came this close to losing control, but it felt good. Really good. "Yeah."

Allison tugged at his hair, pulling him up the bed. His lips were still wet from eating her out, but it didn't keep her from kissing him anyway. Her tongue flicked at his fangs and dodged them expertly as she dragged him into a kiss. "Later," she murmured, "the three of us are going to book a weekend and do everything that three people can do in one bed. But right now, I really need you to tie me again."

The sound of foil being ripped stuttered, and Stiles cursed. "Warn a guy," he complained, tossing the ruined condom aside and reaching for a fresh one. He grabbed Derek's shoulder, pulling him away from Allison, and Derek was so far gone that he didn't even think to do anything but let it happen. 

The second attempt at unwrapping went smoothly, without any unfortunate attacks on the rubber. Long fingers wrapped around Derek's shaft, callused in a different way than Allison's. It was getting to the point where Derek thought he could identify them by the way their hands felt on his skin. Stiles kissed him slowly, being absurdly careful with Derek's fangs, and rolled the condom on just as expertly as he did everything else. Which was to say, there was a lot of fumbling and more playing with Derek's dick than was strictly necessary. 

As soon as Stiles let go, Allison was there instead, dragging him down into another kiss. Her knees wrapped around his hips, pulling him up at the same time that Stiles was moving down. Derek was starting to feel like he was being managed. If he hadn't been gripping the mattress through holes his claws had punched in it, he might have been annoyed. 

Since he couldn't argue, he let them push him around, let Allison grab his cock and guide the tip into her. Stiles' hands on his hips flexed, pushing, because subtlety was for other people. Derek took the hint and finished sliding into Allison. In this shape, he was smaller. It was less of a struggle, and he didn't feel like he was fighting her body he whole way. Allison wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him against her, burying his face against her neck. 

They held still for a long second, just breathing. Then Derek felt the slight push of Stiles' cock against his hole. A shiver ran up his spine at the blunt pressure, the feeling of _imminent_. 

"You okay with this?" Stiles asked, fingers biting into Derek's hipbones.

"Do I look like I'm _not_?" Derek's claws flexed against the bed. "Do it."

"Bossy, bossy." Stiles pressed a warm, damp kiss between Derek's shoulders, right where he estimated that the center of his tattoo was. Then his cock was pushing in, pressure giving way to stretching. The hint of pain barely mattered as Stiles worked him open in short, sharp little thrusts. Derek hid his face in Allison's shoulder and breathed through his teeth until Stiles' thighs were flush against his own. They panted, Stiles' breath loud and impossible to miss, Allison's a warm wash against Derek's shoulder. 

Tentatively, Derek rolled his hips. Both of the humans moaned, Allison's nails digging into his shoulders and Stiles holding onto his hips like he had any control over them at all. "Go, Stiles." Derek's voice sounded rough in his own ears, mumbled around a mouthful of sharp teeth. He rocked his hips again, using the inch or two of leeway he had between them.

For once, Stiles didn't have a quip. His hands kneaded Derek's hips as he pulled out and drove back in. It shoved Derek harder into Allison, making her moan and rock against him. Allison's cunt gripped his cock, muscles flexing, while Stiles pulled out and slid into him again. His cock glanced against Derek's prostate, not quite reaching it. Every near miss had Derek pushing back onto him, back arched and teeth bared.

It became a game of timing. Every time Stiles moved, Derek had to move, too, unless he braced himself first. Allison worked with them both, rocking her hips up to meet Derek's thrusts. He could feel one of her legs stretched out to press against Stiles' thigh, goading him on, even kicking him with her heel. It curled something warm and possessive through Derek's chest. 

Stiles was starting to slow down, his thrusts getting deeper and harder, less rhythmic. Derek clenched down and felt Stiles' entire body jerk. He fell forward, catching himself on the mattress with one arm and on Derek's back with his face. "Jerk."

A bruise blossomed and healed as Allison nipped at the underside of his jaw. "If you two are done playing," she muttered against his skin, voice high and breathy. Her hips bucked up against him, using her knees to pull him harder into her. "Some of us would like to get off." 

"And Stiles says _I'm_ the bossy one." Derek rolled his shoulders forward and pushed up; Stiles' weight on his back was heavy, but not enough to bother him. Stiles rocked into him again, forcing his cock into her. Actually seeing it made Derek's breath stutter. He rested the flat of his hand against the inside of Allison's thigh, thumb flicking over her clit and making her shudder. 

Heat curled through him, tugging at the base of his spine and flaring up into raw pleasure every time one of them moved. Dropping his head, Derek broke away from Stiles' slower pace and started to speed up. He felt Stiles' rhythm stutter and break as he fought to keep up. The base of his cock started to swell as his balls drew up. 

Then Stiles' hand flexed on his hip and he _slammed_ in, the shaft of his cock grinding right over Derek's prostate. Stars burst behind Derek's eyes, swallowing even the red haze of a half-transformation. His hips stuttered and jerked as he came, knot swelling to lock him inside. Allison's hips jerked against him, her body bowed as she shuddered and clenched around him, making _him_ clench back on Stiles. Stiles' hands kept Derek steady as he rode him, forehead still pressed against Derek's back, gasping wordlessly as he came. 

They stayed locked together, sucking down air. Allison and Stiles both shifted slightly around him, but neither one seemed inclined to move. Derek was perfectly okay with that. He dragged his cheek up Allison's neck, leaving a heavy swath of scent behind, along with a reddening stubble mark. One of Stiles' hands slid down Derek's ribs, petting him. He was warm on either side, with Allison's hair spread out across his bed and Stiles' face planted between his shoulders. The whole room reeked of sex, but more than that. It smelled like the three of them, blended so thoroughly that Derek couldn't pick out the individual scents. 

It was nice. Peaceful. The ambient noises outside seemed more distant than usual. Someone was pounding up the stairs, and a car honked blocks away. There was a dog somewhere freaking out. Normal, everyday life, with the big mystery basically harmless. Derek could feel himself relaxing. 

Which, of course, was when Stiles, full of innocence said, "So, that was the second time for you two?"

Bristling, Derek turned his head to catch Stiles' eye. "We told you we swallowed water. There was an incident. It worked out." 

Stiles fell to the side, long legs stretched out to hang off the edge of the bed. A cold gleam of calculation lit his eyes. "You were totally wearing fur, weren't you?"

"Can we talk about it when we're not in bed?" Allison asked plaintively. Her face felt hot against Derek's shoulder, and what he could see of the edge of her ear was bright red. 

"I think bed's the perfect place for it," Stiles said. He traced idle swirls across Derek's hip and side, just firm enough to not be ticklish. The fingertip jumped the gap and continued onto Allison's thigh. "Since that's where I'd like to see it happen again. That is, if there's an again?"

Derek could feel both of them staring at him, like _he_ was the one they had to worry about saying no. "If you want." It was as close to an admission as Derek was going to get. Their lives were complicated enough without leaping feet-first into anything, especially with college underway. Sex was good enough.

"We're totally doing this again." Stiles held up a hand, which Allison dutifully high-fived. "We should have Eiffel Towered."

"Next time."

Derek grunted and turned his head to bury it in Allison's shoulder again. "You two..."

Allison poked him in the ribs and rolled her hips, tugging at his knot. "Us two." She sounded incredibly smug about it. 

"Shut up."

The person coming up the stairs paused at his level. Derek's remaining three functional, non-sexed-out brain cells registered the oddness of that and just started to hint that worry might be necessary when the door slammed open and Scott rushed in, reeking of panic and fear.

"Stiles isn't at home and he's not answering his _oh my God_." Scott took two long strides into Derek's loft and froze. He took one look at the tangled pile of limbs on the bed, then immediately backpedaled so fast that Derek actually heard him smack the wall outside the door. "Oh my _God_ , I thought you were taking them home!"

"He didn't say whose home!" As the one who wasn't tied, Stiles scrambled to throw a blanket over the three of them, accidentally covering Derek's head before he tugged it down again. He finished tucking it over his lap and called, "Clear!"

"Never clear! _Never_." But Scott eased back in, eyes clenched shut, groping along the door to guide himself in. 

There was no way to pretend dignity, but Derek tried. "Stop overreacting. What are you doing here, Scott?" 

"My mom couldn't take dinner off, so I went to Stiles' house to play Halo, and he wasn't there, and no one was answering their phones." Scott's nose wrinkled like he smelled something horrible, which, considering that the place reeked of sex, wasn't unlikely. "You couldn't have told me?" 

Allison pulled her face out of Derek's neck. It left a cool patch where she used to be. "We thought it would be weird." 

"Weirder than this?" 

The shock of Scott had pretty much killed Derek's cock, but he hovered protectively over Allison anyway. "Yes." He pushed up on his arms a little, craning his neck to get a better look at Scott. A growl rumbled faintly in his chest, threatening to slip out between his teeth. "Is this going to be a problem?" 

"Nope, no problem." Scott's fingers parted, then closed up again. "Just... a little warning, next time? If I'd known, I totally wouldn't have been a dick about keeping you guys busy."

"We should have told you." Stiles hand settled on the back of Derek's neck, rubbing. "Sorry, dude. Peace?" 

"I'm not fist bumping you when you don't have pants on." Still keeping his eyes closed, Scott backed out again, this time in a much more controlled way. "But yeah, it's cool. I'm just going to go scrub my eyeballs out, and we'll all pretend I never saw this. Deal?"

Derek grunted, Stiles made an assenting sound, and Allison said, "Sounds fair." She pressed closer to Derek in an effort to watch Scott as he scuttled backwards, out the door, and closed it behind him. Then she collapsed back to the mattress with a heavy sigh. "That could have been worse." 

Grumbling under his breath, Derek pressed his nose into her neck. One of his arms snaked out to drag Stiles back in against them, rather than the foot of space he'd been using as cover. The threat was gone, and it was time to get back to what they were doing. "How so?" 

"He could have been ten minutes earlier."

In the hallway, Derek heard Scott's faint cry of pain, and then a rattle as he sprinted down the steps. 

He didn't even try to explain to the humans what was so funny.


End file.
